


Mi Chamocha (Who Is Like You)

by Ampithoe



Series: Mi Chamocha (Who Is Like You) [1]
Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell, Sefer Shmot | Book of Exodus
Genre: 10 Plagues, Alternative Universe - Bible, Ancient Egypt, Egyptian Baz Pitch, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, First Kiss, Found Family, Happy Ending, Hebrew Simon Snow, Judaism, M/M, Minor Character Death, Scribe Baz Pitch, Slave Simon Snow, Slavery, Slow Burn, The Bible - Freeform, The Exodus, there was only one blanket
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 10:20:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 31,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27349531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ampithoe/pseuds/Ampithoe
Summary: Baz is an Egyptian scribe, and Simon is a Hebrew slave. What is it like to be two ordinary guys caught up in the tumultuous events of the Exodus from Egypt? And what do you do when you fall for someone you’re not even allowed to have a conversation with?
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Series: Mi Chamocha (Who Is Like You) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1997320
Comments: 156
Kudos: 89
Collections: Carry On Through The Ages





	1. Scribe and Slave

**Author's Note:**

> The "ch"s in Mi Chamocha are soft, like in loch or chutzpah.
> 
> This is not a soft or easy story. Slavery is a brutal institution, and the plagues that freed the Hebrews have their own brutality. Some of the plagues may be triggers for some people; chapter titles and chapter notes will warn of this content, which will include blood, insects, disease, and violent weather. 
> 
> But life goes on, even in the midst of brutality, and love happens. I hope you enjoy this story.
> 
> This fic is completely written. Chapter 3 will post on Saturday, November 7 and additional chapters will post every other day from there.

**Age 13**

**Baz**

My father takes me to a work site. The Hebrew slaves are making mud bricks — treading straw into the mud, hauling the mixture, filling molds and laying them to dry, removing dried bricks from molds and stacking them. There's a boy about my age fetching and carrying, tossing straw into the treading pit and gathering up the bits that escape. He's working hard and sweating in the sun, but he's grinning, making jokes with the treaders. They are plodding, exhausted, but sometimes he can make them smile for a moment, and that lights his face up even more. I think I have never seen someone as alive as this boy.

He has paler skin than me; all the Hebrews do. The backs of my hands are the shade of the half-dried bricks, and they shine a little bit like copper; his skin is closer to desert sand, and his shine is like the afternoon sun. He's speckled with darker spots and brown bumps like pebbles, spread out over his chest and back like stars in the night sky. I assume there are even more hidden by his loincloth. I'm slender and soft from time indoors studying and practicing my writing and drawing; he has cords of muscle from lifting and carrying, pushing and pulling.

I want his attention, but I don’t know his name. I don’t know any of their names — why would I — but for once I want to. I make something up instead. “You! Boy! Sandy-skin!” 

He looks up, fire in his eyes. “Are you talking to me?”

“I am! Come here and explain this to me.” I want him near me for some reason. Now I need to come up with an excuse. He comes over, and I ask, “How long does it take the bricks to dry?”

I continue to find questions I don't really need the answers to. After several more, he says, “Are you done? Because they need more straw, and if they have to stop to get it that will slow everyone down.”

“Fine, Sand. Take care of it, then come back here.” He shoots me a look and then grabs a bundle of straw, his muscles straining to drag it over to the mud pit. As he is fluffing the straw and scattering it over the pit, my father comes and tells me that we need to leave. I'm disappointed — I had wanted to talk to the boy some more — but I obey in silence.

**Simon**

Today I’m working making bricks. Other days it might be building, farming, digging a canal. We do anything that needs to be done, especially the very worst jobs, worse than the ones that even poor or enslaved Egyptians do.

Once, when I was little, I asked Eb petulantly, “When will  _ I _ get to go build things and grow things like the big boys and the men?”

She said, “Soon enough, and don’t be in any hurry for it.” She was right, which she usually is. Now I never have a day when I don’t have to work — we work even during the five-day festival of the new year, which every single Egyptian has off.

It’s not just us Hebrews at the work sites. There are always people watching over us — a Hebrew overseer, sometimes an Egyptian overseer as well, and maybe a government official or architect. Sometimes there’s also a scribe recording the amount of work we do, the supplies that are needed, and so on. The scribe here today is Malkom, and he’s brought his son Baz with him. The boy is about my age, and I guess he’s training to be a scribe too.

I hate him.

He calls me “Sand” or “Sand-boy”. I have to call him “sir”.

He always makes me come answer stupid questions about how bricks are made, or why we hoe the crops, or something. (And I can't just answer “because the overseer says we have to,” even though that’s always the actual reason.)

Yesterday he dropped his stylus and made me pick it up. Twice.

The first time may have been an accident. The second time definitely wasn't. He just liked that he could make me do it. What I actually wanted to do was punch the smug look off of his face. But I could be beaten for that, and even worse, so could the people around me, so I did what he told me to, gritting my teeth the whole time.

Like any Egyptian boy, his head is shaved except for one thick lock of hair over his left ear; it’s fastened with a gold clasp. He has black and green paint around his eyes like the rich Egyptians do. Plenty of the scribes wear that, but not usually kids our age unless they're actually royalty. He’s just showing off, making sure everyone sees how perfect his eyes are. It’s one thing to be gorgeous; it’s another thing to make sure no one could possibly miss noticing it. He is so full of himself it makes me feel sick.

When I was handing him the stylus (twice!) I could smell some kind of fancy perfume on him. He's never worked a day in his life — you can see it in how soft and smooth his skin is. He seems pretty and useless, but I have to do what he tells me or risk a whipping.

**Baz**

As I go to bed one evening, I’m thinking about Sand (as I’ve decided to call him). I’m drawn to him like a moth to the flame of an oil lamp. He's so lively and happy even though you would think his life is one of hardship. He's very playful with the other slaves — he's always got a joke or a little trick (never a mean one) — but never with me. I ask him questions, and he answers with a grimace, but also with an outward politeness so that he can't be disciplined. He always calls me “sir” — I could have him beaten if he did anything else. But today I saw him playing with one of the other slaves, just seeing who could make a louder noise blowing through a piece of straw, and they looked so happy. He wouldn't ever want to do that with me. 

I wake up from a nightmare of being trapped in the dark in a sarcophagus. I’ve had these dreams ever since Mother was entombed. When I was younger, they made me cry out in fear. Our servant Wera would come and try to comfort me. If Father heard, he let me know how disappointed he was — and how disappointed he thought Mother would be, which was even worse. I learned to stay quiet, at least once I woke up, and I learned to be my own comfort as best I could, usually by distracting myself with other thoughts — a game I could play with my cousin Dev, perhaps, or a sweet treat I might be able to wheedle out of Wera. Tonight I think of Sand. He’s the one thing I’m sure of.

Warm eyes.

Glossy curls.

The fact that he is the most alive boy I have ever seen. That nothing can break his spirit, not even me.

That I would do anything to be near him.

**Simon**

It doesn’t make sense for Eb to cook for just the two of us, so we always eat with other people — usually Peniah’s family. One night I’m sitting with Peniah and telling her how irritating I find it when Baz comes to the work site. How I feel him watching me, how he bothers me with his stupid questions, how irritatingly smug he is about his perfect looks and his soft job and his power.

“Why does it bother you so much, Simon?”

“Because he’s insufferable! He has things I’ll never have, even though he’s never had to work hard. And the way he  _ looks _ at me, like he thinks he’s better than I am. He’s so soft and fancy, it makes me sick.”

“Yes, but isn’t that true of pretty much any Egyptian who shows up when you’re working? Why does this one bother you so much? Is it just that he’s our age?”

“Peniah, trust me, if you saw him for yourself, you’d agree that he’s just impossible.”

“Maybe I would and maybe I wouldn’t. But the fact is, I’m tired of hearing about him. You need to tell me about something else, anything else, and less about Baz. I’d think you’d be tired of thinking about him, anyway.”

Peniah just doesn’t get it. I love her for always, but she just doesn’t get it.


	2. The Amulet

**Age 15**

**Baz**

I spend more time at the work sites these days, now that I'm Father’s full-time assistant. We travel from one site to another — a brickworks, a building being built, a canal under repair, an agricultural field. The first thing I always do is look for Sand, and when I see him it makes my day (inside, very quietly — I don't want Father to notice my obsession).

One day in the season of Akhet (inundation) Father and I go to a site where a new storehouse is being built. I'm delighted to see Sand — he’s up on a ladder, spreading mud and laying bricks in it. These must be the final courses — his feet are level with my head. I watch him out of the corner of my eye as he reaches over to place the bricks and clambers up and down to move the ladder along the wall.

I'm looking down at my papyrus when I hear a shout. Sand has slipped and fallen and is having trouble getting back up. He gets to one knee, but then when he tries to put the other foot on the ground to push up, he cries out and goes right back down. I want to go over and see what's wrong, but I have to keep taking dictation from Father. Another slave goes over to Sand to see what's up and then calls for the overseer, a fairly young Hebrew man. He directs Sand to sit at the base of the wall and sends another slave up the ladder in his place.

I want to do something for him, but I have to wait until Father says we're finished for the day. The sun is still up, so the slaves will continue working for some time yet. Sand is still sitting against the wall, so I tell Father that I will meet him at home. I go over to Sand and ask, “What happened? Did you lose your footing?”

“Yes, I think maybe I stepped into some mud that had fallen down, and that made my foot slippery. I wrapped it with some cloth, but I can't really work.” He doesn't say “sir,” but I'm willing to tolerate that under the circumstances.

“If you can't work, why don't you go home? Surely you'd be more comfortable there.”

“My ankle won't hold my weight. I need to wait until the end of the work day when someone can help me home.”

He’s not his usual sunny looking self at all. He’s not complaining or crying, but his face is set, and he’s huddled in on himself. I hate seeing him like that, so without really thinking things through, I say, “That's ridiculous. I'll help you get home. Come on, get up.” I hold out a hand to him, but he just looks at me. It’s as I’m standing there, waiting for his response, that I realize this will mean actually touching him. Putting my arm around him, having his arm around me. The idea makes my heart race.

**Simon**

I stare at him. “You'll what?”

“I’m done with work for the day — you can lean on me.”

“All right...” I call over to Peremal, Peniah's oldest brother — he became an overseer after the new year — and let him know that I'm leaving. He looks at us curiously — Baz helping me is very odd — but says nothing. It's not like he can question an Egyptian's decisions.

I take Baz’s hand and let him pull me up. Then he gets his shoulder kind of into my armpit and we get my arm settled across his shoulders. It’s awkward because he’s taller than me, but we’re able to make forward progress. We can’t keep all my weight off my ankle, and it hurts a lot, so I try to focus on noticing every little detail of Baz to distract myself. 

He’s had a man’s hairstyle for over a year now. His glossy black locks, perfectly straight, brush against the arm I have over his shoulders. As usual, I’m wearing just a loincloth, and he’s got his scribe’s skirt on, so a lot of my skin is against his — my arm over his bare shoulders, the bare right side of my torso against his left. This close, I smell his perfume very strongly. I can’t identify the ingredients, because we don’t have these things. It’s kind of bright and sharp in my nose, though — I like it. His skin is very soft and smooth, and a bit darker than it used to be now that he is at the work sites more often. 

It's slow going; I can put hardly any weight on my foot, even with the wrapping, so I'm leaning heavily on Baz. He's not very strong — all his work is done sitting down. But we do manage to move along, and I'd rather be resting on my pallet at home than in the sun on the building site, getting in the way. Fortunately, this latest storehouse is being built not too far from where the Hebrew houses are.

We don’t really talk, but Baz checks in a few times to see if I’m doing okay. The closer we get to Eb's hut, though, the quieter he gets. We finally make it there, and he pauses for a moment outside the door. I’ll bet he’s never been in a Hebrew house before — I’ve almost never seen an Egyptian anywhere in our section of the city. He gets over it, though. We get inside and he lowers me to my pallet. 

Then he says it: “This is how you live?” I can't believe it. How can he ask that? How can he even pretend to not know? He's at work sites all the time. He sees how we work, how we're dressed. He keeps the records, he knows how little we're given. And I'm in pain. So I snap.

**Baz**

I can tell it's a mistake before I finish saying it. He freezes, even stiffer than the stiffness he's been holding around the pain. He props himself up on his elbows and looks at me with fire in his eyes. “Yes, this is  _ how I live _ . How did you think Pharaoh's  _ subject peoples _ live!? We live in buildings that are built in the dark or by old people and children and pregnant women because everyone else has to work every moment there's light. We live on what we can grow and a tiny ration of grain. We live wearing rags of coarse cloth and sometimes what the poorest Egyptians throw away if we're lucky. Yes, this is how we live. Now get out!” He's practically spitting. He _ is _ spitting; I feel a droplet on my face.

“Sand...” I extend a hand to him.

“I said get out! One of my  _ friends _ will help me. One of my  _ own people _ will help me. Someone who already knows  _ how I live. _ ”

I hear a voice from the doorway “Simon? Are you okay?” It's a short girl, plump for a slave, silhouetted against the sun.

“He got hurt on the building site. I brought him back here, and I'm trying to help.”

“It doesn't sound like he wants your help. And he's got me.” She comes into the hut and puts her hands on her hips. “You should go.”

I don't like the way she's speaking to me. There's no deference there at all. But I'm already wrong-footed by Sand’s fury, so I leave. As I exit, I touch the point where his spittle landed on my face. Possibly this means I'm a bit disturbed, but there's no one I can ask.

I knew the Hebrews were poor, but I hadn’t really pictured what that meant. The hut I took him to was a single room, smaller than my bedroom, and it was plainly the entire dwelling for two people. It had two pallets — not beds, just mats on the floor — and a few baskets. The floor was dirt — not mud brick, just dirt. It was neatly kept, I suppose, but it looked terribly uncomfortable. And that’s where he’s supposed to try to recover from what seems like a fairly severe injury.

**Simon**

Peniah makes Baz go away, and I'm grateful to her, because I just cannot stand to have that smug bastard around me right now, and I don't have the energy to shoo him off myself. Plus, I doubt he would listen. He never cares about what I might think or feel. He's never had to — when I could be beaten for speaking my mind, he's not likely to ever even know what I think.

After Baz leaves, Peniah comes to look me over and help. She washes the cuts and scrapes with cool water and unwraps my ankle, looking at it with concern. It’s dark purple and has swollen where it wasn’t held in by the wrappings. By the time we got here, it was agonizing to put any weight on it, which left me leaning heavily on Baz (damn him). 

“This looks bad, Simon. I'm going to get Puah.” Puah is the oldest midwife and healing woman we have. She can't actively attend births now, but she teaches and supervises the younger women, and she's the best healer. Peniah comes back with Puah leaning on her arm. 

Puah touches my ankle all over, gets me to move my foot for her ( _ not _ fun), and then looks at it in silence for a few moments. She says that I should avoid walking or standing at all until the swelling is gone. It's hard for everybody when someone is hurt and can't work, because they don't reduce the work quotas, but she says it will never heal right if I don't rest it. It will give me pain and hinder me for my whole life. Well. Plenty of people manage with permanent damage from their injuries, but I want to avoid it if I can, so as long as Peremal lets me, I'm going to rest. 

After Puah leaves, Peniah follows her instructions, raising my leg up on some folded blankets and keeping cool wet cloths on my ankle. When Eb comes home from watching the flocks, she takes over from Peniah. She's worried about me, but I tell her not to be, that I'm young and strong and should heal fast. I don't tell her what Puah said about long-term injury because I don't want her to worry, but holding my tongue turns out to be pointless because Peniah tells her and scolds me for keeping quiet.

I'm surprised as anything when Baz shows up the next day. Peniah is sitting on Eb’s pallet, spinning wool in between changing the cloths on my ankle. “What do  _ you _ want?” she asks him suspiciously. “He won't be working again for weeks.”

“I wouldn't want him to. I just... here.” He puts a wrapped bundle on the ground. “I got injured once, and they said that good rich food was really important for healing. I brought dried meat and date honey. I know... That is, I thought maybe you could use a little extra for him.” I wonder if he was going to say he knows we don't get the best food, and pulled back because of our fight yesterday. He comes over and sits cross-legged by my pallet. “How are you doing, Sand?”

“I'm... all right. What are you doing here?”

“I was concerned about you, and, well, I thought maybe I could help, and I knew where you lived from yesterday.” I wonder if some of it is guilt over making me angry by insulting our home. If so, I'll never know. I've never heard him apologize to an Egyptian, let alone a Hebrew. “I have something else besides the food.” He takes a bracelet off his wrist and hands it to me. It's a string of blue-green beads. Most of them are round, maybe the size of a lentil, but one is larger and has an irregular shape. I look curiously at it. It looks like an eye, but there are some extra lines and curves around it.

“What's this?”

“It's an Eye of Horus.”

“What's that?”

“The goddess Hathor healed Horus's eye after it was destroyed in a battle with Seth. You can see here where it was torn and then healed.” He uses his pinky nail to point to a jagged line below the eye. “Amulets like this promote healing. They gave me this one when... when I was hurt. I'd be glad to know that you were wearing it. Just until you're better.” I’m curious about what injury he used it for, but I don't feel like I can ask.

I don't know anything about the different Egyptian gods (they seem to have a lot of them), and we don't use amulets (we can't afford them). Peniah is looking at me like there’s a problem with this. Maybe she thinks El Shaddai (the God the elders teach us about) wouldn’t approve. But it’s not like I’m going to go worship at an Egyptian temple, and everyone knows that the Egyptians have magic that works.

Since I don’t say no for her, Peniah argues with Baz herself. “This is a terrible idea! Do you know how much trouble he could get in if he was found with that? A Hebrew could be killed for stealing from an Egyptian.”

“But he's not stealing it; I'm lending it to him.”

“And can we trust you to stick to that story?” Baz looks offended by her doubts. That's not surprising — he's very proud. I look at his face thoughtfully. Do I trust him? He brought me home yesterday and seemed really concerned about me. He used to play with the power he had over me — I still remember him dropping his stylus and making me pick it up — but he hasn't done that in years. I don't think this is some kind of plot; I think it's actual consideration. And Puah warned me of the possibility of permanent damage. If this can help, it's worth it.

“I trust him,” I say to Peniah. “Thank you, Baz.”

“I’m glad, Sand. Here, I'll put it under the pallet so no one sees it.” He slides it in beneath my feet. Maybe it works better if it's closer to my ankle — I have no idea. “I should go now, and I don't think I should come again. I'll see you when you're back at work.” He leaves, looking back at me over his shoulder as he ducks through the door. 

Why did Baz come back? Helpfulness is the last thing I expect from him. It was strange enough that he brought me home yesterday. The judgment of our living conditions (which he must know we can’t help) seemed more like him. But this, today? Coming back to our little hut that he had so much contempt for, the hut that’s probably the worst dwelling he’s ever been inside? Just to do something nice? And to lend me something precious that belongs to him? It makes no sense, and it makes me uneasy. I don’t know what to feel or think about him.

**Baz**

Sand looked better today than yesterday. I think he’s in less pain, but he still seems subdued and uncomfortable. I'm glad I went back. Perhaps the food and the amulet will help him, and I was glad to interact in a way that was more positive than the dreadful angry mess I created with my comment yesterday. I wish there were other opportunities like this to see him away from work, in a situation where it's possible for us to actually talk to each other. I don't really see any options for that, though, so I guess I’ll go back to longing and secretive looks.

I'm touched by his trust in me. His friend is right — if he were accused of theft from an Egyptian, the best he could hope for would be a severe lashing. More likely he would be sent to work in the mines (and mine slaves don't live long) or simply executed. I wonder whether it was wise to leave the amulet with him, and I become even more concerned that evening when my father's new wife, Dafne, notices that I'm not wearing it.

“Baz, my son” (she calls me that, although I wasn’t born to her — she has a sweet and loving nature) “where is your Eye of Horus?”

I think quickly. If I say I lost it, that could work out badly for Sand. I certainly can't say that I lent it to a slave. “Dev had an accident, so I loaned it to him.” My cousin Dev is training to be a charioteer in the army. It’s hard and dangerous, so the story will seem reasonable enough. 

That evening, I go to visit Dev in the training barracks. Our friend Nil is there; they’re playing senet on Dev’s bunk. To judge from where the pieces are on the board, Nil is going to trounce Dev — not surprising, as he’s the better strategist. Dev will always go for the immediate hit, but Nil has patience and an understanding of the probabilities that lets him set things up for success down the line. 

I greet them and spend some time tossing in smart remarks as they play. Then I tell Dev, “Oh, by the way, if anyone asks, you were hurt last week and I loaned you my Eye of Horus amulet.”

“That’s interesting,” he says. “And what did you actually do with it?”

I try to look embarrassed (it’s not hard, since I  _ am _ embarrassed; it’s just that the reason is different from what I’m going to tell him). “I used it as security for a gambling debt. Just, mention the injury to your parents in case my father asks about it, okay?”

“A bottle of wine would help it be more okay.” Dev is looking to make something on the deal. Nil is looking at me as if he doesn’t really think I’d gamble the amulet away. He doesn’t say anything, though. Good man.

“Fine, fine. I’ll bring one by next week. Now, whose turn is it on that board there?”

Covering up the amulet’s absence is getting more and more complicated, and I curse my sentimentality. It would have made more sense to buy a new amulet for Sand; then there wouldn't have been anything for Dafne to notice or any stories to make up. 

But the one I left with him is the one that they gave me when I was recovering from the crocodile attack that injured me and took my mother's life. I associate it with her — I always felt it was not just the gods but also her spirit that was looking after me — and I wanted to put Sand in her care temporarily. I hope she understands that I want her to help him now. Perhaps I should visit her tomb with a food offering, even though it’s not a holiday, and whisper a few words to her. If she knows what’s in my heart, she’ll care for him for my sake.


	3. The Road to Pithom

**Age 17**

**Baz**

I am a full scribe now, although a very junior one. I work closely with Father, but often he remains in his office and I am the only one at the work sites. This gives me a little more freedom to linger near Sand. Father always discouraged any hint of familiarity with slaves; he said that it undercut the respect that they should show for free Egyptians. 

Sand has been a bit less truculent since the incident of his injury, and I have tried to be a bit more careful of his pride. I still have no chance to talk to him about anything but the work the slaves do, and even that is minimal. I'd like to talk to him about so many other things.

One morning, before I leave for the current work site, Father calls me into his office. “Baz. Pharaoh's administrators are concerned that the slaves in Rameses are slacking off. They want someone to travel to Pithom and make some notes so we can compare our results with the work there. Do you feel up to that task?”

“Yes, Father.” It's a substantial journey — one very long day's walk or two more moderate ones — but I can do it, even with my slightly lame ankle. Then an inspiration strikes me. “Can I bring a slave with me to carry my tools and supplies?” Of course I know which slave I have in mind.

“That's fine. Talk to the administrators to find out exactly what information they need. When can you leave?”

“Two or three days should give me plenty of time to make arrangements. Thank you for entrusting this to me, Father.”

**Simon**

I'm moving bricks when that irritating scribeling Baz comes up to me. “Sand.”

“Yes, sir?” I don't stop, because I don't want to spend more time hefting these bricks than I need to, but I don't want to set them down and pick them up again either.

“Pay attention to me when I'm speaking to you.” Really? I suppose he has no idea what it's like to carry anything heavier than a writing board. I stop and look at him. He continues, “The day after tomorrow, I'm traveling to Pithom on business. You're to accompany me.”

I'm surprised into asking a question. “What do you need me for? I can't read or write.”

“I'll do the writing. I need someone to carry my things, a job for which you're clearly ideally suited,” he says, coolly regarding me and my load of bricks. “Meet me here at first light.”

I say “yes, sir” again, because there isn't anything else I can say.

Two days later, I fill a water skin, take a loaf of day-old bread, and meet Baz at the work site. He hands me a bundle wrapped in a blanket and tied with rope. I didn't think of bringing a blanket — I assumed we’d walk all the way today. Maybe he’s planning on a slower pace than I would make on my own — he’s pretty soft, and he walks with a slight limp. It's not likely to get cold, but the ground may not be the nicest to sleep on. Oh well.

“Let's get going, Sand. I'm planning to take it in two stages; we'll sleep out tonight.” He couldn’t have mentioned that the other day? He was too busy with his important plans to think about what I might need to know — typical. Oh well, the ground it is.

**Baz**

We walk in silence as long as we're in Rameses, which is for the best. Egyptians don't talk to slaves except to command them or berate them.

Well.

Sometimes they dally with them. I've seen Egyptian men and older boys grabbing or touching or kissing slaves sometimes. Usually a female slave, once in a while a male one. It's considered acceptable, but it's not what I want. I mean, if I made Sand kiss me, or more, he couldn't really stop me. But I don't want to make him, to threaten him with punishment or ill treatment. I want him to  _ want _ me. But he treats me as a master, as someone to be obeyed, someone he probably resents (has resented for years, judging from his grudging answers to my pointless questions on every task from brick making to canal repair to threshing grain). So the odds of him ever wanting such a thing are vanishingly small — it’s hopeless. But maybe on this trip we can become some tiny bit closer? Not friends, but something?

My glum thoughts and pitiful hopes have kept me occupied long enough that we've made it out of the city, passing through the less-crowded outskirts to the open road.

“We've got a long way to go, Sand. We might as well talk.”

“About what, sir?”

He's not going to make this easy, is he? Well, why should he? I've never made anything easy for him. When we were younger, I liked playing with my power over him. That doesn’t amuse me any more, but I do tend to be a bit stinging when I talk to him as a way of avoiding being too soft.

“You don't need to be so formal on the road, Sand. You can call me Baz.”

“I don't think I should do that, sir.” I'll try again later. He's stubborn, and I don't want to order him to call me by my name any more than I want to order him to kiss me. (But oh, I do wish he would kiss me.) (There's no point in thinking like that; it will never happen.)

“Fine, then. Call me sir if you must. But, I don't know, you could tell me about your family?”

“I don't really have one, not properly. My mother died when I was born. Mital was still nursing Peniah so she nursed me too. Peniah calls me her milk brother. My father died a couple of years later. Peniah's family is huge, almost bursting out of their house, so Eb took me. She's a widow and doesn't have any children, so it's just us.”

“Is Peniah the girl who told me to go away when I took you home after you got hurt?”

“Yeah, she's fierce when she's defending the people she cares about.”

We walk some more. I have something I want to say. I don’t like talking about it, but I want him to know.

“My mother died when I was five.”

“What happened?” I'm silent for long enough that he says, “I'm sorry, sir, I shouldn't have asked.”

“No. I brought it up. It's just hard to talk about. We were walking near the river, and I got too close, and a crocodile grabbed me by the ankle. She screamed and grabbed me and pulled me away, threw me up the bank. So it went for her instead. Some men pulled her free, but she died later that day.” I am glad, at least, that we had her body to mummify and entomb so that she could go on to the afterlife.

“I'm so sorry, Baz. That sounds terrible.” Hearing these words from Sand makes me feel very strange. To have him... care about me? Even a little? Is unsettling. And he did use my name this time. I've wanted that for years, but I definitely want to talk about something else now.

“My father remarried. His second wife is a very kind woman; she treats me as her son.” We talk about her for a while. It's a much more comfortable subject. And then a vulture flies overhead and we speculate on what it may be looking to find, then move on to discussing the scenery and wildlife more generally.

**Simon**

I didn't know that about Baz, that his mother was dead (like mine). And it would have been a terrifying experience for a little boy. That must be when he got the scars and the limp. Probably that's when he got the healing amulet he loaned me when I hurt my ankle. I don't want to ask, though. It seems like the topic made him kind of emotional, and he changed the subject pretty quickly, even though he was the one who brought it up in the first place.

The sun starts to go down, so we look for a place to camp — which is mostly finding a spot that's not too rocky, and a spring to refill our water skins — before it gets too dark. We won't need a fire — our food doesn't need to be cooked, and the night won't get too cold. We're having dinner, hard bread and dried figs. We're not talking (because why would we) when Baz surprises me by speaking.

“Sand? Do you think we could ever be friends?”

It's a strange question. Strange because the answer should be obvious —  _ no _ — and strange because I've wondered that myself.

“I don't know. I don't think so.”

He pulls in on himself.

“Why not?”

“Your life has nothing to do with mine. We... I'm sure you live in a beautiful house, you get to do soft work indoors, you can read and write. This journey is terribly hard work and uncomfortable conditions for you. It's the easiest I can remember having it.”

“That's not my fault.”

“It's not anybody's  _ fault _ , it's just how things are. How things are always going to be.”

“Sand...”

I snap at him. “I have a name. It's Simon ben Davi. You can call me Simon.”

“I like Sand. It's cute, like you.” I don't think about “cute like you.” I think about the presumption.

“Well, I like Simon. If you want to be my friend, actually my friend, you have to listen to what I want.”

“Don't friends call each other nicknames?”

“Maybe. But Sand isn't that kind of nickname. It's something you called me that I never wanted. But I couldn't stop you, because you could have me or anyone around me beaten or starved or worked to death.”

“I wouldn't have!”

“Wouldn't you? If it struck you as funny? Or if you were angry? If you just weren't thinking?”

He's quiet for a long time. I think I've made him angry. Or sad. His face is so closed it's always hard to tell what he feels. I see his vivid eyes, his regal nose, his rosy golden skin, but I can’t tell what’s going on behind those elegant, still features. He's quiet so long that I think that's it for tonight, but then I hear him.

“All right, then. Simon. We should get ready to sleep.”

“All right,” I answer. I smooth out a piece of ground and prepare to lie down.

**Baz**

He's getting ready to lie on the dirt. “Sand...“ I begin, but he shoots me a look. “Sorry, Simon. Do you not have a blanket?”

“No. I assumed we would get to Pithom in one day. It's fine.”

I feel terrible. I don’t want him to have to sleep in the dirt just because I didn’t think to tell him I planned to take it slow. Should I offer to share my blanket with him? Blood rises to my face at the thought and I turn away and look to the horizon. What if I reach out and touch him while I’m asleep? What if I get hard and he notices? I would be mortified.

But I also just don’t want to make him lie on the ground, especially when I’m not. I hate that he has so much less than me. Here’s one little thing I can give to him. “Well, my blanket is pretty large. We could both lie on it. If you wanted.” 

He looks at me for what feels like a long time, like he's weighing the comfort of a clean blanket against the burden of having to share it with me. I guess he decides that I'm better than dirt that's possibly crawling with bugs, because he eventually says, “All right, let's share. Here, we can clear this area of rocks and it will be smooth.” He indicates an area without ruts or bumps. 

We spend a few minutes clearing the rocks away. He draws his arm back and throws one as far as he can. I copy him and fall pathetically short of his distance. He laughs (he laughs!) and we continue throwing, my attempts improving slightly but still amounting to nothing much, until the area is clear. I spread out the blanket and choose a side, and he lies down on the other side, facing away from me.

I can't blame him.

“Good night, Baz.”

“Good night, Sa...imon.” That's going to take a lot of getting used to, but if it's not a sign of friendship, it's a sign of  _ something _ . By which I mean, not being just  _ any _ Egyptian and  _ any _ Hebrew, but Baz and Simon, two individual people who know each other. If that change lasts beyond this trip, I'll take it, even if it's the only thing that does.

**Simon**

I'm surprised at Baz offering to share the blanket, and I wonder if he's got some kind of plot in mind, but I don't see how he could use this against me. Maybe he's actually being generous. It's happened before, although not often. I like being near him. I mean, being near someone. I'm used to sharing the hut with Eb and hearing her breathing at night — the hut's small and our pallets are close together. So after he chooses a side, I lie down next to him and turn on my side (away from him — being face to face with him would be really weird).

The evening air is cool on my face, but my back, turned to Baz, is warmer. After the long day of walking, and with Baz breathing steadily behind me (though it does sound like he's still awake), I'm soon asleep.

Some unknown time later, I'm woken from deep in a dream — something about fluffy sweet cakes with tart fruits in them, the sort of things Egyptians have at festivals and we pretty much never get — because Baz is thrashing around and making noises. He actually hits me a couple of times. I can't tell if he's trying to talk or just crying out, but the sounds get more and more unhappy and the thrashing gets more and more frantic. 

I call his name once… twice… three times, while simultaneously trying to scoot away from his flailing limbs. It's not working, so I take hold of his wrists and try again. “Hey… Baz… Baz… It's okay. I've got you. It's okay.” He jerks awake, and he's not thrashing now, but he's struggling to get his wrists out of my grasp. I let go. He looks wild, almost panicked, as far as I can see him in the moonlight.

“Why did you do that!?”

“Baz. You were thrashing and, well, hitting me. And you were making these really unhappy noises. I wanted to get you awake. I tried more gently at first, but that didn't work.”

**Baz**

Hathor’s tits! I actually hit him. That's not the way to — I don't know, make friends or whatever I'm trying to do with this idiotic trip. “I'm sorry, Ssimon.” — I'm getting a bit better with the name thing — “I was having a bad dream. I, um, I get them sometimes.”

“Do you want to tell me about it? That helps me when I've had one. Eb listens to me and holds my hand until I go back to sleep. I could do that for you, if you wanted.”

Oh. Maybe having a nightmare wasn't a disaster after all. I mean, this is what I wanted, right? For him to freely offer something? It's not love, far from it, and it may not even be friendship, but at least it's… kindness? “That… that sounds good, Simon. Thank you.” 

He straightens out the blanket. (It's a tumbled mess — I must have really been thrashing.) When it's flat on the ground again, he lies down, facing towards me this time. This puts us face to face for a brief moment, and it's much too much. I take his hand, then turn on my back and look up at the stars. I let my eyes follow the band of Hathor's milk across the sky. His hand is hot and rough and heavy, like an anchor holding me to earth. I take a deep breath and tell him, “I was trapped someplace dark and struggling to get out. That's all.”

**Simon**

Is Baz afraid of the dark? It seems unlike him — he's always so calm, so self-possessed. Like nothing could scare or bother him. I don't want to ask him directly; it might hurt his pride (which he has a lot of). “That sounds terrifying,” I say instead.

He continues talking, looking not at me but up to the sky. “My father loved my mother very much, and he had a beautiful tomb built for her. We visit on the sacred days and bring her favorite foods.” I know that the Egyptians love their fancy tombs (we've built plenty of them) but I don't know much about how they treat them or think about them. 

I’m also not sure what his mother’s tomb has to do with his dream, but I make a listening sort of noise and squeeze his hand. It’s cool in mine, soft everywhere except for calluses on his thumb and first finger. Maybe writing gives you that. My hands have calluses everywhere, and scars too. He hasn’t got a single scar that I’ve ever seen, except the crocodile bites on his calf and ankle.

“Right after she died, well, I was young. I didn't understand these things properly. I didn't realize that the ka was free to travel, and only comes back to the body when it wants to sleep. I was so afraid that she would wake up in her body and be trapped in the dark. I had dreams about it. Like this one.”

“Do you have them often?”

“Not these days. But we were talking about her death yesterday. Maybe that made me think of it. I understand all these things now — I've written out many, many copies of The Book of the Dead. But the dream hasn't changed.”

I’ve never thought that Baz could be afraid or feel small and alone. I want to help him. “Well, you couldn't be less trapped right now. We're not even in a building. No walls or ceilings for many rods around us.” He takes a deep breath, like maybe something has let go inside him, so I guess that was a good thing to say. He hasn't let go of my hand, and I kind of like holding his, so when I fall back asleep, our hands are still loosely clasped.


	4. Pithom and Back to Rameses

**Baz**

We wake with the sun the next day. We're not holding hands anymore, but Sand's… Simon's… hand is still stretching out towards me. I turn away from him to hide my smile. We grumble and stretch and eat a bit of food. Then he takes the blanket and makes up a bundle with my writing tools on the inside, hefting it to his back, and we begin walking. 

We reach Pithom late in the day and find the house of the senior scribe with whom we will be lodging. Simon is sent off to the servants' quarters. He doesn't say anything, but his shoulders go stiff and his face hardens. Our difference in status here has plainly undone the bit of closeness we found in the wilderness. I'm given an elegant evening meal by my host; I'm sure Sand ( _ Simon _ , for Thoth’s sake!) is eating much plainer fare. I’m given a room to myself with a comfortable bed; I’d rather be on a blanket on the ground next to Simon. I leave the oil lamp burning as usual, turn on my side, and try to sleep.

The next day, I tour building sites and storehouses, confirming counts and taking notes. Sand is with me all the time, silently carrying my things. We don't speak except for me to give him instructions, and it hurts. I see his face, his muscles, his spots and speckles — and I adore, and I yearn, and I don't say a thing. I don't know what he's thinking. Is he pleased to have such light duty, or is he furious at being at my beck and call? Does he miss his friends and fellow slaves in Rameses? Is there any possibility that this trip is a pleasure to him? I feel like it was a mistake for me to bring him along.

**Simon**

When Baz woke up this morning, his eye paint was smudged, his chin was stubbly, and his skirt was wrinkled. He looked casual, like he wasn’t so far above me. Over our two days of walking, I got used to being around him and even chatting with him. He was vulnerable and human for once, and I was able to help him. But as soon as we arrive at the fancy house where we’re staying in Pithom, a servant rushes me off to a side entrance. Baz is so busy being graciously welcomed that he doesn’t even glance at me. Like I don’t matter to him. Like always.

I'm given a warm welcome too, but not an elegant one. A boy a few years younger than me introduces himself as Hanu and shows me where I'll be sleeping — there are three sleeping mats in here. Two have little piles of belongings at them, and he gestures towards the third, so I put my things down there. I guess I'll be sharing with two regular members of the household staff. He tells me that there's still some time until the servants’ dinner, so I can relax or walk around the city. I've been walking all day, though, and I guess I'd rather have company than just loll here, so I ask what he's doing. 

I end up helping Hanu scrub out the beer jars. We joke around and tell each other a bit about our lives. He’s a Hittite — his father was killed in fighting at Kadesh, and he and his mom became slaves. I explain that I'm not usually this kind of errand boy, that typically I'm making bricks or doing agricultural work. He says that this must be a nice change and asks how it came about. I tell him that’s a very good question.

The next day I tote Baz’s stuff around all the places he's inspecting. It feels weird to be at a building site as Baz’s servant, not part of the workforce. I’m just carrying Baz's writing board and scribe tools. It's kind of pointless — he carries his stuff himself at home — and I hate having it so obvious that he's got power over me. 

Like, when I'm working on making bricks or plowing a field it's not like I'm free — it's never like I'm free — but I'm part of a big group of people, all Hebrews, all working together. Everyone's my cousin or my cousin's cousin or my cousin's cousin's cousin, and I like to joke with the other workers, or at least trade complaints with them. 

This is different. It's easy physically, but I'm young and strong, so it's not like my regular work is too much for me. And here I'm not connected to the workers; I said hi to a few of them and they didn’t even respond. As far as they’re concerned, I’m an extension of Baz, not one of them, even though they’re Hebrews, too. But even though I'm trailing after Baz all the time, we're not talking like we were on the road. I'm just me, by myself, doing what I'm told and not being  _ with _ anyone. I don't like it.

Well. I'll get to hang out with Hanu and the other house servants tonight, and then we'll be back on the road tomorrow.

**Baz**

I get the information I need — it seems like the slaves here are doing about as much work as the ones in Rameses, and they get jobs done at a similar rate. Our fields yield more grain, in fact, but that's probably due to being closer to the Nile. I don't actually care how many bricks the slaves are making in the two cities; for me, this trip was always an excuse to spend some time with Simon. After the day touring work sites and storage depots and taking notes, I'm treated to another lovely meal. I had thought about coming up with some pretext to stay here another day — collating notes, cross-checking records, something — but I see now that the time spent on the job is not the kind of time with Simon that I want. 

So, I go to my bed and, just like the previous night, I lie awake wondering about him. What are the servant's quarters like? Is he alone? Is he making friends, like the ray of sunshine that he is? Is there any chance that he is thinking about me, any chance that sometime I might be able to bask in that sunshine? The more time I spend with him the more I realize that there's no realistic way that could happen. 

In the morning, we set out for our journey back to Rameses. We're quiet for quite some time, even after we leave the city. Finally I say, “How was your stay in Pithom?”

“Oh great, now you'll talk to me. In the city I'm your beast of burden, but here on the road where there's no one but occasional gazelles you'll talk to me?”

I sigh. “You know that it's not like I have a choice about that. That no one would understand me spending time in conversation with you.”

“Yes, I know that. That doesn't make me like it.”

I decide to answer my own question. “I had a pleasant stay. They gave me delicious food, and a musician played last night, and my bed was very comfortable. I’d have shared all that with you if I could.” I couldn’t, of course, and we both know it.

We walk in silence for some time, and then a question bursts out of him.

“Why am I on this trip?”

“To carry things for me.”

“Yes, obviously. But why  _ me _ ? There are a lot of slaves in Rameses, and some of them are more closely connected to you and your work. Why did I get pulled off of brick making to go walking with you?”

It's an astute question. I sometimes forget that his lack of education doesn't mean he's unintelligent. “I requested you.”

“Why?”

_ Because I might be in love with you _ **_,_ ** I don’t say. “I know you. I thought we could work together, and I thought maybe you would like the break.”

“And you didn't think about asking  _ me _ what  _ I _ wanted!? God almighty!  _ This _ is why we can't be friends! You have total control over my life, and you don't think twice about using it!”

I know perfectly well that my power over him stops us being friends, let alone going beyond friendship. I want his affection to come freely offered, and he's not free. But I still try to argue with him, because I don't want this to be a problem. “None of us controls our lives. I have to follow orders from my father and the administrators and Pharaoh.”

“Yes, and you're not friends with those people. And even with having to follow those orders, you have a lot more freedom and a lot more luxury than I do.”

“I can't change that. I can't make you not a Hebrew, or make any Hebrew not a slave. But I promise not to use that to control your life without asking you again.”

“A cat can promise not to catch a mouse, and it can even keep that promise. But in the end, they're still a cat and a mouse.”

On that bitter thought, we walk onward.

We don’t speak again until dusk, when we discuss where to stop.

**Simon**

We don’t talk during dinner. I think Baz may be a bit angry or even hurt, which seems weird. Everything I said was true — and really, he has to have known it all already.

He spreads out the blanket — we don’t make a game of rock removal this time — and lies down wordlessly, leaving room for me. Is it a peace offering? Well, I don’t want to lie down on the dirt if there’s an alternative, so I take the other side. “Thanks,” I say.

“No problem.”

I turn onto my side but stare off into the dim wilderness rather than closing my eyes. Sleep seems far away. I’m very aware of Baz’s body next to me, of his silence, of his hurt. Am I supposed to pretend that his high-handedness doesn’t matter to me just so he’ll feel okay about things? I don’t see any way to fix this without betraying myself, so I decide not to think about it.

After a long time lying there, with Baz a silent windbreak at my back, I finally sleep. He doesn’t thrash or cry out, so there’s no reason to hold his hand or talk quietly under the stars. 

When we wake in the morning, we’ve gotten past the worst of our anger and frustration of the day before. We eat, pack, and go on our way, and on the journey we discuss simple, uncomplicated things like the animals we see. On our return to Rameses, we go to Baz’s house. I’ve built houses occasionally, but I’ve never been inside an Egyptian private home. There are two enormous stone jars flanking the front door. I ask what’s in them, but apparently they’re just for looks. Baz leads me through a courtyard containing a pool of cool water with plants growing in it and down a hallway to his room. 

This room is nearly twice the size of the hut I share with Eb. There’s a window in the wall to my right with some kind of woven covering, I guess to keep bugs out. Across from the door is a bed — a real one, made of wood, not a pallet on the floor like I have. There’s a chest at the foot of the bed and two little tables between the bed and the window. One table has tools and supplies that I recognize as scribe stuff; he has me put the bundle down near that. The other one has a comb and all kinds of bottles and jars (his face paints, maybe?) and what I think is a mirror. 

I’ve never seen a mirror before, and I ask if I can try it. He smiles a little and says yes. It’s strange to be looking at my own face, and I make crazy shapes with my mouth and eyes. It makes him laugh. I didn’t realize I had so many spots on my face as well as the parts I can see without a mirror, like my arms and chest. 

I put the mirror down and look at Baz. It’s probably time for me to leave. He clears his throat awkwardly. “Thank you for your help and your company, Simon. I won’t requisition you for something again without checking with you first.”

“Okay. Thank you… Baz.” I still need to call him sir on the job site, but here, alone, I call him by his name one last time before I turn to go.


	5. Bricks Without Straw

**Age 19**

**Baz**

I spend too much time thinking about Simon. Really, thinking about him at all is too much — he is not for me, and I am not for him. Our lives have nothing to do with each other. But I can’t help myself. Even now, two years later, awake or asleep, my mind drifts back so easily to the two of us lying on a blanket under the stars, holding hands, Simon trying to help me feel better. And our lives do intersect, now and then, and every time they do it freshens the thoughts and the memories.

I’m pathetic.

**Simon**

I often meet Peniah for breakfast at a fire pit that’s about midway between her family’s house and Eb’s hut. One morning she asks me excitedly, “Have you heard the news?”

“Uh, which news? Is it about the new lamb with the really dark brown wool?” She should know that I only get news from her and Eb, and Eb doesn’t care about much besides the flocks.

“No! About Moshe!”

“Uh, who’s Moshe?”

“He’s Miryam and Aharon’s brother.” (I think about asking who they are, but the way she says it makes me think that she’ll roll her eyes if I do. Also, I want to get to the main bit of news.) “He’s been away in Midian for 40 years, but he’s come back. He says that El Shaddai did a miracle to get his attention, and sent him here to tell Pharaoh to let us go. And then El Shaddai is going to lead us to the land that was promised to Avraham!”

I’ve heard the elders tell genealogies and stories, and Avraham was an important ancestor a long time ago. El Shaddai was the god he worshipped. They talk like he’s still our God, but I have to say he doesn’t seem to be doing much for us these days. 

“And what kind of land is it? Where?”

“I don’t know where it is, but they say it’s flowing with milk and honey.” That sounds ridiculous and my face must show my opinion because she laughs. “That’s just a way of saying that the land is rich and good, and you know that as well as I do, Simon ben Davi! You need to get to the brickworks, and I need to start mixing bread dough. I’ll see you tomorrow.” I hug her, and we go our separate ways.

Pharaoh is not going to let us go. There's no way. We do so much work — food and building and lots of other things depend on us. And even if this Moshe is telling the truth, and there's some special God that concerns himself with us Hebrews, the Egyptians have gods, too, lots of them. They even say that Pharaoh is a god. That doesn't quite make sense to me, but it goes to show that anybody can say they have a divine mandate.

A handful of days after Peniah tells me about Moshe, I get bad news from Peremal. Starting now, we have to gather our own straw for brick-making, but we're going to be expected to make just as many bricks. I know from experience that when we don't produce as fast as they think we should, we pay for it in beatings or reductions in our rations. Those things both actually make it harder to get work done, of course. This system doesn't make sense if the goal is actually production. If the goal is grinding up the Hebrews and spitting us out it makes perfect sense.

The pace of work gets worse. They pull some of the men away from the site to carry straw from the nearest fields (which aren't very close). We can't spare men for the gathering, so some of the women end up doing that, including Peniah. Not Eb, she's busy with the flocks, but now she’s taking a bunch of small children with her so their moms can go gather straw. It makes her job a lot harder, since baby people have a lot less sense than baby goats (or that’s what she says, anyway). We eat cold food more often than not, since the women who are busy gathering straw don’t have time to cook.

With some men moving straw, those of us on the building site are spread thin. I try to carry more bricks at once, but I'm not sure that actually speeds things up, since I don't move as fast with the heavier load. We work further into the dusk, too, but if anyone gets hurt in the dim light, that will just slow us up more.

**Baz**

The Hebrews' work has been made harder for no reason that I can see — they have to gather their own straw now, as well as making and hauling the bricks and doing the building. It makes no sense — it’s far easier to have the farmers supply the straw. And I can see it's taking a toll on the workers. I notice it most in Simon, of course, because my eyes go to him the most. (So does my heart.) He's moving slowly, and he looks tired. At one point I even see him drop a load of bricks, which I've never seen before — he's both strong and coordinated. So, that evening I approach Father in his office.

“Father, can you explain this new policy about straw? It's exhausting the slaves and making them less effective. I don't see the point.”

He looks at me, as if deciding whether to tell me something. Then he sighs and speaks. “Making them exhausted and ineffective  _ is _ the point. They've been agitating for more freedom, and we need to put an end to that.”

“Well, I can't blame them for wanting to be free. They're men, after all.”

“They're slaves, and in the divinely decreed order, they serve. And before you get another argument ready for me, let me point out that this is a direct order from Pharaoh, and criticizing it is blasphemy.” That shuts my mouth, but it can't stop up my brain.

**Simon**

We’re working until almost full dark these days; it’s the only way to meet our quotas while also gathering straw. I’m surprised one night to see Baz still there as I leave the brickworks; writing requires good light, so he would normally have gone home quite some time ago. He gestures to me, so I let the others walk on ahead, and I go over to him. “Why are you here so late, Baz? Is something wrong?”

He looks unsure of himself for once. “I just… I just wanted to let you know that I don’t think it’s right, not supplying you with straw.”

It’s been a very long day, and I’m tired, and I’m mad about Eb having to work so hard, and I’m not very tactful at the best of times. “Nothing about our lives is right. This is just the newest thing that’s not right, not the first.” He pulls back as if I’ve slapped him. I’m not feeling particularly sympathetic, though. “Do you know why this is happening?”

He looks uncertain. “Um…”

“Because we asked for three days off. We asked for three days off, and that made Pharaoh nervous about us, so our work, which was already fucking exhausting, has gotten even worse. I know you came to tell me that you don’t think it’s right. Thank you for not thinking we deserve to suffer, I guess.” I’ve always been a slave. I was born a slave, and I expected to die a slave. But now that Moshe has come and is saying something else might be possible, it makes me restless. It makes me wonder.

“Simon, I…”

“What about being free? If there were some way we could actually be free, work for our own benefit and not anyone else’s, not be the absolute bottom of a very tall heap, what about that? Do you think we should have that?” I’m so intense and so in Baz’s face that I feel like I’m shouting at him, although I’m also being quiet because this is not a conversation that should even happen. It isn’t safe for anyone but us to know about it.

**Baz**

“Do you think we should have that?” He’s practically spitting at me, and though he’s whispering, it’s the fiercest whisper I’ve ever encountered.

His passion is one of the things I love most about him. And I know what I have to answer.

“Yes. Yes, I think you should have that. But…”

I don’t need sunlight to sense the fire in his eyes. “But what? There’s a condition on this for you?”

“Not a condition. Just… a feeling?” I can’t believe I’m about to talk to him about a feeling. Well, in for a grain, in for the stalk. “Would this be freedom here? In Egypt? Or freedom somewhere else?”

“I don’t know! Why does it matter?”

“It doesn’t matter to my answer. You should be free.” I’ve never actually said that before, but I know I believe it. “Just, if it was somewhere else, I would miss you. Which doesn’t mean anything. I just wanted to say it.” I can’t think of anything else to say, so I turn and walk away.

**Simon**

He would miss me?

I never thought I would hear an Egyptian say I should be free. And I never thought I would hear anything that suggested that Baz cared about me in any way.

I know two things.

I do want to be free. I would want that even if it meant never seeing him again.

And I would miss him, too.


	6. Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: blood, lots and lots of blood.

_ One morning at a work site, a Hebrew is drinking from a water skin when he suddenly gasps, grunts, chokes, and spits. What he spits is a stream of blood, dark and red, and others rush to his side to help him. But he's unharmed, just disgusted — the water, he says, tastes metallic and putrid. They pour some of it out, and it's blood. Someone offers a different skin. He lifts it to his mouth, but sees a drip from it, dark red, not clear. This skin, too, is full of blood. So is every jar and vessel at the building site. _

_ The same morning, some Hebrew girls are laughing and joking (and splashing each other a bit) as they do laundry at one of the little rivers of the Nile delta. Suddenly they scream as the clothes they are washing — and the drops they are splashing and the water they are standing in — turn deep red and smell like butchering day. _

_ A cook in an Egyptian house is preparing to cook lentils, but as she pours the water onto them, it turns red and the smell is unbearable. _

_ And so it goes throughout the land. Everywhere, in every jar, every skin, every canal, every pond and pool, even the great Nile itself, there is no clean water, only blood. Fish and other creatures in the water die and float to the surface, bellies bloating in the sun. The water and the rotting animals both stink, and no one has anything drinkable. In the homes of the wealthy, the beautiful, cooling pools of water in the courtyards are now full of blood, which starts out smelling bad and quickly becomes foul.  _

_ A slave who has been sent to get water realizes that the river is undrinkable. In desperation, she digs a hole in the earth nearby. What filters up through the ground into the hole is muddy, but it is water, not blood, and it can be drunk. For the next seven days, the riverbanks are crowded with thirsty people digging holes.  _

**Simon**

Suddenly this morning there was no water, only blood — no water in the river, in the canals, in storage, not anywhere. Peremal sends us home since the Egyptians won’t want bricks tainted with blood. Then, before the sun has moved two fist widths across the sky, we’re told to go to the river.

Someone figured out that if you dig a hole next to the river, what filters through the ground into the hole is water, not blood. It’s a relief — we had all been talking about what was going to happen. You can’t live without drinking, and no one wants to have to drink blood to survive.

They set us to work in teams. Some of us are digging big rectangular holes near the river and shoveling out the mud that falls down from the sides. Others are passing jars down to be filled and then lifting the full (and much heavier) jars back up. Some are assembling shadoofs, counterweighted poles on pivots that make lifting the water easier. Others set the jars out in rows to let the mud settle out and then pour the relatively clean water into other containers, and so on.

It’s hard work, but everything we do is hard work, and at least this is a change. When it’s time to leave, we’re each allowed to take one container of water home with us — it’s not really enough, but it’s something. That night I hear that it’s “our” God who has done this — he’s demonstrating his power so that Pharaoh will let us go. So that’s twice that Moshe has gone to Pharaoh and things have gotten worse, not better.

**Baz**

For the first day of blood, everyone is scrambling to keep the nation from dying of thirst. By the second day, Pharaoh’s machinery of administration has sprung into action. There are teams of slaves digging for water by the river, processing it, and distributing it. That afternoon, I’m walking from one water pit to the next, enumerating and recording slaves, jars, depth, and more. 

In one of the pits I find Simon, glistening with sweat, shoveling mud and shoring up the sides. I can’t pass up the opportunity to talk to him and see if he’s okay. “You there, come here and answer some questions.” His shoulders come up at my imperious tone, but as soon as he’s close I lean over and say quietly, “I’m sorry, Simon. You know that’s just for show. I wanted to find out if you and Eb are okay.”

He looks a bit startled and it takes him a minute to adjust to my concern, but then he says, “Yeah, we’re doing all right. I wish we had a bit more water. But I drink my fill here — it’s muddy but that’s okay — and then I can give Eb some from my share.”

I feel sick. He’s working long days for clean water for everyone in Egypt — for  _ me _ — with the palaces getting the lion’s share of course, and he’s drinking mud himself. “You’re a good person, Simon. I wish you got some reward for it.” And then I have to move on.


	7. Frogs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: lots of frogs; eventually piles of dead frogs.

_ A few days after the river becomes sweet again, frogs emerge from it. Large frogs, small frogs, frogs of every shade of green. Frogs the color of verdigris, frogs the color of young reeds, frogs the color of malachite eye paint. Frogs as small as the tip of a woman's finger, frogs larger than the fist of a powerful man. _

_ They hop everywhere. They hop and they croak. They enter into houses and workplaces, they cover the streets. They knock over ink pots and splash in beer jars and get into beds. Everyone, whatever their work, is busy brushing frogs away. A scribe tries to write, but a frog (its feet black with ink) lands SPLAT in the middle of his sheet of papyrus. He brushes it aside, but in its place come two more. A woman dumps three frogs out of her kneading tray, but by the time she can fetch the flour, the tray is full of frogs again. Frogs tread on the food and nibble on the salad and muddy the clothes, and because they are so lively, they cannot be kept away. Because they are so lively, no one can sleep — the air is full of the kereek kereek of froggy voices, and the beds are full of frogs that crawl and jump upon the would-be sleepers. _

_ Then, at dawn, the people can finally fall asleep, as the frogs they hurl out of bed stay hurled. They sleep for hours and then arise late in the day to a terrible stench — the smell of frogs, dead frogs, that have been lying in the sun. The scribes and priests return to their normal work, but the slaves are put to work piling up frogs, hauling frogs, burying frogs. _

_ The last of the frogs is buried. Clothes are washed free of frog urine and muddy little footprints and frog guts. Spoiled food is discarded and replaced (by those who can afford to do so). Workrooms are set in order. Building resumes. _

**Simon**

The frogs aren’t too bad at first. For one thing, I actually think they’re kind of cute, and I like the sounds they make. And it takes them some time to get from the river to all the different places and to spread out and get into the houses and stuff. But within a very few days, life is next to impossible. 

Frogs like it wet, so they’re playing and splashing in the mud pits at the brickworks. It quickly becomes impossible to fish them all out — they’re hard to spot when they’re covered with mud, and however fast you get them out, more get in just as fast, or faster. We end up shoveling the mud up with frogs in it, picking off the frogs as best we can, and filling the molds. Then you have to reach around in the mold and pull out any frogs you missed, and probably add another shovelful of mud to make up the space that had the frog in it. 

We start bringing all the youngsters with us, boys and girls both, the ones who are old enough to stay on task (more or less) but not old enough yet for heavy lifting. They get the job of sitting by the bricks as they’re drying in the sun, pulling off any frogs that get onto the bricks, and smoothing the mud back out.

Of course, it didn’t take long for the kids to decide that as long as they needed to be throwing frogs, they might as well have some fun. So they compete to throw frogs the furthest. They throw frogs at each other. They put frogs in each other’s hair. They have frog fights. So then we put some of the older girls — ones who are normally kneading bread, cooking, and farming — in charge of trying to keep the children in order (and making them wash in the canal before they go home). 

Needless to say, we are not making bricks as fast as usual. Peniah, who is very efficient, is supervising the girls who are supervising the children who are guarding the bricks. So, at least I get to walk to work with her, which is completely new, and it’s nice to get more time to talk together every day.

**Baz**

It takes only a few days to reduce the brickworks and building sites to utter chaos. Once the children start throwing frogs, I decide to find some work that can be done at my writing table at home. Not only do I not want to be hit with a frog; if I was hit with a frog, the child who threw it would likely be punished. I tell myself that that is the benevolent reason I make this choice. Deep in my heart, I suspect that it’s mostly that I don’t want to be hit with a muddy frog. I have to stop up my door and window quite thoroughly to keep the frogs out, which means working by lamplight, but it’s worth it.

After the frogs die, I get sent out to record the removal efforts. It’s calmer than the live frog situation was, but smells a lot worse. Like many Egyptians, I put perfume on a strip of cloth and bind it under my nose until the frogs are hauled away and buried, and their traces are scrubbed away.

One afternoon, as I’m making sure that some public plazas have been cleared of frogs, I see Simon. He’s shoveling grotesque frog remnants into a bag that’s being held by two other slaves. I use my usual approach, which always annoys him but is all I have. “You with the shovel! Come here a minute!” He comes over and looks at me, jaw set and eyes flashing. I say, “Look, life is very weird right now, and I have a feeling it’s only getting worse. I always wonder how you’re doing, but it’s hard trying to catch you like this. Could you meet me behind the newest storehouse tonight at moonrise? Please?” He gives me a long, searching look, then nods his head and goes back to shoveling frog muck.

**Simon**

I never like it when Baz orders me around. And not only did he just literally order me to come speak to him, he’s suggesting the time and place for our meeting. It’s him deciding what I should do yet again, even if he did say please.

But.

I keep thinking about him. About his eyes with their beautiful paint — they’d be beautiful unpainted too, but the dark lines and green paint just make them so much more compelling. I think about holding his hand under the stars and hearing him talk about his mother and his fears. About the way he smells. About how his life that looks so perfect has had pain and terror and loss. About him asking whether we could ever be friends.

So, yeah, if I can see him, I want to see him.

I finish my day of shoveling frog bits, wash off in a canal, and go home to dinner with Peniah and Eb. Then I let Eb know I’ll be out late, and I make my way to the storehouse. When I walk around the back, I see that Baz is already there.

“Hello,” I say.

“Hello. I didn’t know if you would come. Thank you.”

“Yeah, well. I kind of wanted to know you were okay. I mean, you look fine. You always look fine. But anyway.”

“This is such a strange and terrible time. I wanted to know if you were all right. There isn’t very much to hold on to right now, and really, you’ve been a constant in my life for years now.”

I know what he means. It hasn’t always been friendly, but it’s always been there. I live in a city full of Egyptians. Most of them I never really interact with. Some just look past me in the street, knowing I’ll step aside to let them pass. Some of them give me orders. But Baz and I have always  _ seen _ each other. He’s often infuriated me (though he really has done better since the trip to Pithom). But he’s never really ignored me, even when he pretended to. And I’ve never been able to ignore him, even when I wanted to.

Peniah asked me so many years ago, when he was first getting under my skin, what made dealing with him so different from all the other Egyptians I’m surrounded by. I still don’t know the answer, but I know that something does.

I don’t think I can put any of that into spoken words, so I don’t try. “It’s a strange time for sure. Blood, Frogs. Who knows what’s next?” Moshe, possibly, or El Shaddai, but I don’t mean for that question to be answered. “What are they saying it’s about, among the Egyptians?”

“There are a dozen different rumors. But my father has some connections to the court, and he says these plagues are being visited on us by some kind of Hebrew god. That this god is trying to show that he’s mightier than the gods of Egypt so that Pharaoh will let you all go. Moshe says it’s to worship in the wilderness, but Pharaoh is certain that he really means to lead you all away.”

“I’ve never met Moshe. But he is here, and he is saying things like that, that we have a great and mighty God who can bring even Pharaoh to his knees.”

“Pharaoh is a god himself, you know.”

“Maybe he is. I don’t know much about gods, and I haven’t met Pharaoh any more than I’ve met Moshe. I don’t think you and I are going to meet people like that or answer these questions. The gods don’t talk to us. We’re going to get thrown around this way and that by their struggles and maybe never really know the answers. But I’m glad you wanted to know how I was.”

Baz smiles faintly. “I’m glad you’re glad.”

“Look, I think this is going to get worse before it’s over. There’s no telling what’s next or when we’ll see each other. Maybe we should meet here again.” I wasn’t sure about suggesting this, but Baz takes to the idea readily (well, I guess it was his idea at first).

“Okay. I’ll meet you here every five days? About this time?”

I nod. “Okay.” 


	8. Gnats

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: swarms of insects.

_ As the builders return to their work, it is almost a pleasure to be able to gather straw, to make and haul bricks. Not pleasant exactly — the work is still exhausting — but the dusty smell of bricks drying in the sun is far preferable to the stench of bloated frogs. There is the occasional song, the occasional joke. _

_ And then come the gnats. It's not unusual to have to brush a gnat or two away from one's face, especially as the dusk draws on. But this is… unusually many gnats. Increasingly many gnats. Impossibly many gnats. Soon it is a choice between working with a face full of gnats, eyes full of gnats, a mouth full of gnats, or doing no work at all because the hands are so busy swiping and slapping and waving at gnats. Everyone starts to wear cloth over their mouths and noses, and if they can get cloth fine enough (or they can manage without sight), their eyes as well. The gnats still tickle the skin, though, since one can't work entirely covered, and slaves in fields and building sites have no choice but to continue working anyway.  _

_ Some slaves are pulled away from their usual tasks to wave fans for the governors, the overseers, the scribes, the priests, Pharaoh and his court, and for the wives of all these people. It's not bad to be pulled onto fan duty — it's often inside, or at least in the shade, and the eddies of air may clear some gnats away from the slaves as well as the masters. _

_ The gnats die away after a handful of days, and life begins to get back to normal. _

**Simon**

The gnats aren’t too bad. At least you don’t have to shovel them. Some people have to go fan them away from Egyptians (Baz has someone fanning away his gnats the days that he’s at the brickworks), but it’s mostly kids that end up having to do that. I’m big and strong, and they’ll get more work out of us if I haul bricks and Pip, Peniah’s littlest brother, waves a fan, rather than the other way around.

The gnats have been here for three days when it’s time to meet Baz behind the storehouse again. I get there before him this time. As I wait, waving wildly at the gnats with a small bundle of palm fronds, I look up at the stars. Somehow it makes me remember that night in the desert. Not the one where we were too angry to talk; the one where he had a nightmare and I held his hand. I remember how cool and smooth his hand felt in mine with just those few calluses highlighting its perfection. Baz’s whole body is like that, smooth and beautiful, except for the crocodile scars on that one ankle and calf. No wonder he has nightmares. Although they aren’t about crocodiles, just about the dark.

I liked how his hand felt in mine. But even more than that, I think I liked that I was doing something for him that helped him, not because he told me to, but because I wanted to. Something I offered him of my own free will. And it was something more than my ability to lift and carry things.

I knew what to offer him because of what Eb does for me when I have nightmares. I wonder whether anyone in his fancy house, where he lives in such luxury, does anything for him when he’s scared like that.

**Baz**

I approach the back of the storehouse. Simon is there before me, looking up at the sky. I clear my throat to get his attention. “You look lost in thought,” I say.

“Oh!” He jumps a little; I think I startled him. “Do you ever think about that trip to Pithom?” he asks.

_ Only all the time. _ “Occasionally. Why?”

“Nothing. Just, I dunno, we could see the stars better far away from any buildings. And we could talk whenever we wanted to, without sneaking around.”

I’m not sure what to say about that. “Well, thank you for meeting me. Are things going all right for you? What about Eb?”

“We’re okay. Eb takes the long view of things. She says, ‘There’s a lot worse things in the world than gnats.’” 

I look at him, and I can’t stop myself from giggling.

“What?” he demands.

“I’m sorry, Simon. It’s not nice of me to do that. It’s just… Well, I’ve always thought of your skin as kind of like the night sky, only in reverse, you know? A light surface with dark spots? And it’s like there are suddenly twice as many stars in the sky.”

He looks down at his chest and arms, and I guess he sees what I mean — gnats everywhere — and he laughs, too. “Stars aren’t usually that lively!” he says, because of course the gnats aren’t holding still — they’re crawling around, buzzing around, landing and taking off.

“Let’s get rid of some of the interlopers,” I say. I pull my small hand fan out of the waistband of my skirt, and he starts waving his palm fronds at his chest. Soon we’re fanning him wildly, and swatting at the gnats, and getting positively silly. We stutter to a halt in a fit of giggles and fall back against the wall.

**Simon**

“Do you really see the stars on me?” I ask wonderingly.

“I do. See, here are the three bright stars of Sah.” He traces his finger down along my left ribs, not quite touching the skin, and sure enough, there are three spots in more or less of a line. “And here’s his wife Sodpet.” He touches very lightly on a particularly big spot down near my hip, not too far above where my loincloth is wrapped. I’ve always seen the marks on my body as comical or a bit ugly, but he seems to find them beautiful.

“Any others?” I ask breathlessly.

“So many. I think these are my favorites.” He touches two fingertips very lightly to a pair of bumps on my neck below my right ear. I’ve felt them plenty of times when wiping the sweat off my neck, but I’ve never seen them. “Those are the Indesctructibles.” The Indestructibles are two stars that are always in the mehet direction — the direction of the Nile’s flow — no matter what time of year it is. They’re crucial for finding your way at night.

I feel my pulse pounding wildly against his fingers, and l look down towards his hand, my little bundle of palm leaves hanging stupidly still down by my side. He must feel it too, and I start to look up towards his face, when I hear two raucous voices raised in song. Two soldiers, clearly drunk, turn down into the alley behind the building and stumble along, lurching into each other and shouting bawdy lyrics. Baz and I jump apart as if the point where his fingers touch my neck has suddenly burnt us both. 

My face is burning red. “I’ll see you here in five days,” I mutter, and I turn and rush off towards Eb’s hut.


	9. Flies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: lots of insects

_ Life continues as usual in Goshen, where most of the Hebrews live. They keep their flocks, they mind their fields, they go out to work. But at the building sites in Pithom and Rameses, in the palace, in the temples, in all the places of the Egyptians, it's a different story. The gnats are gone, but in their place come enormous swarms of flies, black and buzzing. The sound is constant. They cover every surface. They crawl over the statues of the gods in the temples, over the crowns of Osiris and Isis, over the jackal head of Anubis and the cow's head of Hathor and all over the stunted figure of Bes.  _

_ The fields where the Egyptian flocks and herds are kept are a cacophony — the grunts and bellows and snorts of the miserable livestock (and the oaths of herders) are added to the constant buzzing of the flies. No one wants to eat soup, because it’s impossible to strain the flies out of it. Dry food is best, because a person can wipe the flies off and, with luck, get it to their mouth for a bite before more flies land. Even Pharaoh is reduced to eating plain meat and bread (the finest of both, of course) and drinking wine through a cloth to strain out the flies. Everyone sleeps with cloth over their faces to keep the flies off. Slaves are called back to fanning duty, and this time it is a hardship, because they’re going where the flies are thickest — Pharaoh and his court are beset by twice as many flies as anyone else. _

**Simon**

The flies are definitely worse than the gnats, but maybe not as bad as the frogs. The bricks all have flies in them, but no one is cutting our production quotas any, so we just get any kids who aren’t on fly-fanning duty to smooth over the surface of the bricks so that the flies are covered in mud. This is yet another thing that our God is doing to try to help us that’s really not helpful. Of course, if we really go free, insects and even rotting frogs will seem like nothing. But for now, we’re suffering — the Egyptians are always ready to make sure of that.

Eb is distressed on behalf of the Egyptians’ livestock. She knows how much animals hate flies, and she wishes that our children were being sent to fan the animals rather than the humans. “Pharaoh brought this on himself by keeping us slaves, but animals are innocent creatures,” she tells me.

I don't see Baz very often during the seven days of flies. I mean, it's not like he's at the brickworks every day anyway. I wonder if he's managing to actually stay away from the nasty little buzzy things, maybe sitting at home draped in gauze or something. I don't blame him if he is. I wish I could be, too. 

We do meet one time behind the storehouse. I'm not gazing dreamily up at the stars this time, just staying wrapped up against the flies. It’s pretty comical, actually — we don’t have kids to fan our flies away, so we’ve both got our fans waving wildly in front of our faces and slapping at our arms the whole time. (These flies don’t bite often, but they do once in a while, and with this many flies, it means everyone has a bite or two.)

The first thing Baz says is, “Eb was right.”

“She usually is. But what was she right about this time?”

“Last time you said she said there were worse things than gnats, and these are definitely worse than gnats.” 

I laugh and agree.

**Baz**

I made him laugh! It’s such a beautiful sound. I can’t see his face very well — the evening is growing dark, and he’s well wrapped up against the flies — but I’ve seen how it lights up when he laughs. I’ve usually seen that at the work sites, where he’s laughing with his fellow slaves. But I love to imagine that he’s got a huge smile right now, just because of me.

“How are you and Eb doing?”

“Oh, Eb’s fine. There aren’t flies at our hut or over our flocks, no more than usual anyway. I have to deal with them at work, but at least at night I can go home and get away from them.”

My jaw drops. I hadn’t realized that the Hebrews weren’t facing flies at home. I wish — for more than one reason — that I could sleep with Simon in his hut. I can’t quite tell him that, of course.

“That sounds nice. I’m sleeping covered head to toe in gauze — it helps some, but it feels sticky, and the buzzing is maddening.”

**Simon**

On my way back to the hut, I run into Peniah, who is banking a fire for the night. “What are you doing out at this time of night?” she asks.

“I just, uh, walked into town. No reason.”

She looks at me. “Isn’t that where the flies are?”

I shrug. “They’re not that bad.”

“That’s not what I’ve heard.”

I shrug again. She just looks at me and says, “I hope you’re being careful,” and we leave it at that.


	10. Murrain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting TWO chapters today, so make sure you read Chapter 9 before reading this!
> 
> Content warning: mass death of animals

_ After several days, the flies vanish as suddenly as they appeared. The quietness of a room with no flies is like a balm; the peace of eating without waving and wiping flies away is true luxury. Life is pleasant. But then comes economic tragedy: animals die. Everywhere in Egypt, animals are dropping dead. The horses that pull the army's chariots, the donkeys that transport goods, the sheep and goats and cattle. The fields are full of dead animals. A few scrawny animals survive, but there will be very little meat this year, because every mare and ewe and nanny must be kept alive to breed more stock.  _

_ But in Goshen, the animals are thriving. Shepherds still watch the flocks, and all the goats and sheep and cattle, from the babies to the nannies to the grumpy old rams, are fine. Egyptian scribes come to examine them. The shepherds can't hear what they say to each other, but they're concerned. Slaves don't ordinarily pay taxes, unless you count their labor (their every breath), but when the slaves have the only healthy animals, they know what to expect. _

**Simon**

It’s such a relief to be working without huge swarms of bugs, and it’s good to let the younger children play and learn instead of fanning Egyptians and smoothing bricks. 

Eb was so sad when she heard about most of the Egyptians’ animals dying. She cried and cried. And then she was sad again when they confiscated so many of our animals — partly to replace what they lost, and partly just to make sure that we suffered, too. "I know they'll be fine," she said. "I'm sure the Egyptian herders love their animals just as much as I love mine. But I'll miss them." 

Eb has spent her days with the herds since she was a girl, so most of these animals are old friends of hers. They trust her, and she loves them. She has coaxed babies out of the nannies and ewes, and she knows just where and how hard to thump a grumpy old ram or billy to stop him being a jerk without hurting him. I know she'll be okay — Eb has an amazing ability to carry on — but I'm sad for her.

I meet with Baz a few days after the confiscations. I haven’t seen him at the brickworks lately, and I’m startled to see that he looks exhausted. We each lean a shoulder against the wall, facing each other.

**Baz**

“Hello, Simon. It’s nice to see your face without all that cloth covering it.” When I realize what I’ve just said, my cheeks burn, and I’m grateful for the dim evening light. He doesn’t seem taken aback, though. 

“You look tired, Baz. Lots to do?”

“Yes. We’ve been working very long days. Pharaoh’s in a hurry to build up the herds and flocks again, and he wants to know where every single animal is, so I’m going all over the city, counting and writing and doing sums.”

“Eb’s really upset about that, you know. She loves her animals so much, and now most of them are gone, and not because of anything she’s done or we’ve done.”

“It’s your god’s doing. He killed nearly all our beasts.”

“Believe me, I know. I’ve been helping burn and bury dead cattle for days now. But why is it that every time the God of the Hebrews does something to the Egyptians, the Hebrews end up paying too? And why does it have to be something that hits Eb so hard?” He sounds frustrated.

“You really love her, don’t you?”

“Everyone does. She’s just kind and good and patient. And she  _ sees _ things about people. And she feels for their pain, and the pain of animals. She cries a lot, says it’s good for you.”

I hardly ever cry at all. I wonder what Eb would think of me?


	11. Boils

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: painful and disfiguring skin infections.

_ After the corpses of the animals are cleared away (people eat some of the meat; they can't afford not to, but it frightens them), life returns to normal — briefly. Then one morning there is strange black dust in the air throughout all of Egypt (except Goshen). And anywhere that even a single speck of it touches the skin, a boil forms. The skin becomes red, bright red, and swells, shiny and hard, and then turns white and sick. The Egyptians have boils on their hands, their arms, their chests and legs. There are boils on the breasts of nursing mothers, on every bit of the bodies of children, on the hands of warriors and farmers and artisans.  _

_ They do no work, because they cannot bear to touch a brush, a hoe, a chisel, a bow, a knife, a spoon. Even the most beautiful women and handsome men are disfigured with swellings on their lips, noses, eyelids, foreheads, cheeks. The crying of the children is pitiful, and some adults cry as well. No one goes about; everyone remains home.  _

_ Because the Hebrews have been spared, they are required to do all the cooking, all the baking, all the serving in every Egyptian household, for seven days. They do it, because they know that when the taskmasters' hands are healed, they will take up the whips again. And they do heal... After seven days, most of the boils have burst and gone, and in ten days everyone is well, if covered in scars. _

**Simon**

For once "our" God has come up with a plague that hurts the Egyptians without hurting us. I mean, I appreciate the effort, with stuff like our animals not dying, but the Egyptians are going to take these things out on us one way or another. But making us do their work when they can't? That's just a change of job assignments. Actually, a lot of it is Hebrew women having to go and do the cooking in the Egyptian houses instead of our houses. 

I end up washing dishes and hauling water for households that normally have Egyptian servants to do it. I kind of wished I'd get assigned to Baz's house, but I don't. I don't know why I'd wish that. I don't even know why I keep meeting him to talk. He's been a pain in my ass way more times than he's done anything nice for me. But he has actually mostly kept his promise he made after Pithom not to use his position to push me around.

The day of our regular meeting comes, and I go to the storehouse, even though I don't really expect him to find him there. The Egyptians aren't getting around much — most of them have boils on their feet as well as everywhere else. Am I a bad person because I'm glad to see them suffering? Anyway, he doesn't come, so I go to his house. I can't go to the front entrance — what excuse would I possibly give? I go to his window instead. I don’t want anyone to think I’m a burglar, so I look carefully both ways down the street before sticking my head in. 

"Baz!" I hiss. "Baz!"

I see him on his bed; he stirs and groans. 

"Baz! Can I come in?"

"Yes," he answers faintly — at least it sounds more like yes than no — so I look both ways again and quickly clamber in. I walk past the door to the bed and crouch down beside it.

Baz looks awful. His beautiful smooth skin is covered with lumps. Some are still red, some have gone white, some have burst. They're all over his face, arms, chest, shins, even feet. I see why he didn't come meet me; I see why they're all staying home. "Baz. Do those hurt as bad as they look like they do?" He nods feebly. I feel terrible for him. "I wish there was something I could do." 

He shrugs. I guess the pain and exhaustion — and the boil at the corner of his mouth — make speaking difficult. 

"It looks like they're healing? Or something? Are you getting any new ones?" 

He shakes his head. 

"I'm glad," I say, and I really am. "Are you thirsty?" 

He nods. I find a pitcher of water and a bit of cloth near the bed. I wet the cloth and squeeze drops of water into his mouth. He nods again in a way that looks like "thank you."

I don't see other practical things to do for him, but at least I can keep him from feeling alone. I find a bit of his arm that doesn't have boils on it and put my hand there. I sit like that for what feels like a long time. I don’t talk, since I don’t want him to try to answer; I just sit quietly, touching him. I can't stay out all night, though — I'm going to have plenty of work to do in the morning, and also I can't be found here.

"I'm going to go home now. I hope you feel better soon." One more nodded thanks from him and I'm gone.

I'm thoughtful on the way home. I had been so glad that El Shaddai had found a way to smite the Egyptians that didn't make us suffer, too. But Baz isn't just a random Egyptian; he's someone I know, someone who has fears and has tried to improve how he acts towards me. Yes, he's been a jerk to me too. Plenty of times. But he's living the life he was born to, just like I am mine. I didn't get a choice about being a slave, and I don't think he really got a choice about being a scribe, either. It's his father's work, and now it's his work too. I'm sure he follows commands from the more senior scribes and Pharaoh's officials and all that.

That's how everything is — we all take orders from someone who takes orders from someone and so on up to Pharaoh. He doesn't take orders, I guess, but our God is sure trying to push him around. I wonder if finally there will be something that actually works to get us our freedom, or if we're all going to just stay here, everyone being ground down by one plague after another.


	12. Hail

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: violent weather causing deaths of humans and animals.

_ One day during Peret, the season of growing, many of the slaves are ordered to bring the flocks into the barns and storehouses. Others are given no orders and remain in the fields and at the building sites. The sky is blue, with a few clouds… which rapidly become more clouds. The sky is covered completely within moments; the light turns green. The air begins to feel strange and heavy. Those people who are still out in the fields and the streets and the work sites look nervously at the sky and towards shelter. Then there is a mighty crack of thunder, and the skies open up. First comes rain — fat, enormous drops that bash against the skin and soak the hair and clothing immediately. With the rain comes more thunder and lightning — the sky is impossibly bright. All those who can, run to shelter. _

_ Then comes the hail. Tiny hailstones at first, the size of lentils. But within moments they are the size of a baby's fist, then a child's, then a man's. As it falls, the lightning continues, crashing with the loudest thunder, and in the midst of the lightning fire reaches to the heavens. Only the most courageous peer out of doors to see it, though; most cower under blankets or furniture or each other in the innermost rooms of their habitations. _

_ Then, all at once, it stops. All is silence. After the impossible noise of hailstones and thunder, every person is deafened. The air is silent, but the sound of the storm reverberates in their ears. _

_ Slowly, cautiously, people walk to the doors of their houses or barns or the structures where they have taken refuge. The sky is clear and blue, and the air is still. Ice lies on the ground, piled as high as a man's knee, enormous lumps of it, so cold to touch, but already turning to water in the sun. _

_ People are slower still to begin to leave the safety of roofs. As they go out and peer around, they see tremendous damage. The adobe bricks of which most buildings are made are chipped here and there, especially at the corners. Roofs are heaped with hail, which is melting and sending rivulets of water down the sides of the buildings. The water, brown with the dust of chipped adobe, runs into the hail that lies piled in the streets. _

_ Some people and animals did not reach shelter in time. They lie dead where the storm found them, covered in hailstones. As the hail melts, their tortured forms are exposed: heads caved in, or eyes put out, or bones broken by the violence of the hail. Every tree is stripped of leaf and blossom, and some are blasted and blackened by the lightning and fire. In the fields, every plant lies smashed to the earth, flattened to the ground under the mounds of hail. _

_ By afternoon, the hail has vanished in the sun, leaving roads wet and muddy, fields sodden, the hair and clothing of corpses soaked. By the next morning, the grain stalks are standing again in the fields. The wheat and spelt have not headed yet and might still yield a crop. But the barley had headed out, and every immature kernel has been stripped from the stalk and ground into the mud, crushed down by the hail; there will be no barley this year. The blossoms of the flax were utterly destroyed; there will be no flax seed this year. Pharaoh has mighty storehouses (built by Hebrew slaves) full of the produce of better years (planted, tended, and harvested by Hebrew slaves), so the people of Egypt will not starve. _

_ Nor will the Hebrews starve, for in all the land of Goshen, not one hailstone or drop of rain has fallen. The gardens of the Hebrews still grow; the hair of their goats and the wool of their sheep is not even damp. But then comes the follow-on plague of taxation, or more accurately, confiscation. The Hebrews do not get salads when Pharaoh is restricted to the dried wares in storage. _

**Earlier that day**

**Simon**

The day starts out badly. I trip getting up from my pallet and send baskets and their contents flying around the hut. I don’t want to leave a mess for Eb (she’s been out with the flocks for a while already), so I scrabble around picking things up. This makes me late leaving, so I skip grabbing food with Peniah and just head straight to the building site. I'm puzzled when I get there, because there's nobody else there and no work going on. I look around and finally find Baz, who looks as lost as I do. I go over to him. "Do you know why there's nobody here?"

"I have no idea. I haven't heard anything about there being a change of plans, and the building's certainly not done — there's a lot of roofing still to do, right?"

"Yeah. The cross-beams are up, and so are the palm fronds, but we've only got the mud covering on over that in one corner so far."

The light is kind of a funny color, and the air feels tense and heavy. Suddenly I feel a fat drop of rain on my arm, and then I'm being pelted. Baz claps his hands to his hair and runs into the building. I laugh and roll my eyes at him — yes, his hair is beautiful, but it's just hair, right? It's not like water is going to hurt it. 

But the rain gets even harder — I'm drenched already — and then I see a brilliant flash of light whiting out the sky and leaving purple shadows behind itself in my vision. This is followed almost immediately by an immensely loud cracking sound, as if someone has smashed the largest stone temple in the city. I decide that maybe Baz isn't so silly after all and run in after him.

He's backed into the corner of the building where the mud covering is up — the water is coming straight through the palm thatch everywhere else. Thatch is pretty good at keeping normal rain off — the light, brief rain we get a few times a year. It might as well be a sheet of gauze in this downpour. The thunder is crashing again and again, and wind is loosening and disturbing the thatch.

The noise of the raindrops changes from wet thuds to something lighter and sharper, like a drummer has switched from using his palms to his fingertips.

Pretty soon after that, something solid crashes down through the thatch. It's followed by more and more, and they're getting bigger and bigger. I can see that they’re hailstones. One takes a crazy bounce and hits me in the leg — it stings a lot — and I crowd up against Baz, pushing him further back into the corner. I've been up on that roof, and I know how little of that thatch has been coated in mud, so I want to get us both as far from the uncoated area as I can. I wrap my arms up and back to cover the back of my head in case of a really high bounce. My face is wedged in between the side of Baz’s head and the rough mud bricks. I’m smelling a combination of his bright spicy perfume, his sweat, and the earthy brick dust.

**Baz**

The flashes of light shine through the little openings in the thatch and light up the space in front of us in a crazy cross-hatching of bright and dark. They're coming ever more frequently, and the din is incredible — roll after roll of thunder, and the sound of the hailstones gaining strength from a murmur to a roar. 

The hailstones are coming through the thatch now, lots of them, larger and larger. One bounces crazily and hits Simon in the leg. He skitters away from it, pushing me hard into the corner. He's turned to face away from the wildness of the storm, which means he's facing me. I stand stock-still as he crowds his body against mine. His head is close against mine, and his arm blocks most of my view of the room. His knee is practically between mine. Our chests are stuck together, skin adhered to skin by the strange stickiness of the air and this peculiar storm. I’m not sure what to do with my hands and arms. I hold them uselessly out to my sides for a bit, but as the storm continues, I wrap them around his back and pull him even closer to me.

I’m overwhelmed by sensation. The light grows and fades but never goes entirely away. The sliver of the storehouse that I can see past Simon’s arm is painted in shards of bright white and stark black. The roar of noise is continual, and there are hailstones crashing down, some of them bouncing into our little corner of relative safety. And all over my body, I feel Simon. I smell him, sweaty and male and sweet and entrancing and edible. I slide my head down and bury my face in his hair. I hold him, and he huddles into me, covers me and protects me, and I close my eyes against the brightness, and smell him, and hold him amid the roar of the storm. It goes on and on. Balanced between the sound and fury breaking into the building from outside and the racing of my pulse and senses within my body, I don’t know whether I want it to stop or not.

And then the storm is over. No more sound battering my ears, no more jagged bright light cutting through my closed eyelids, just the feel and smell of Simon and my heart trying to batter its way out through my ribs. I stay there for some long moments before I realize that I should let go. I lift up my head and unwrap my arms from him. He lifts up his head, lowers his arms, and steps back — just a short pace at first; our bodies are only a hand’s width apart. 

We look at each other. His eyes look like mine must: wide and shocked and questioning. He backs away further and we look around us. Some light — normal sunlight — filters in where the palm fronds have been battered apart or torn off. The floor is covered in balls of ice mixed with bits of the roof. My ears are ringing — I know it's silent now, but it doesn't sound that way yet because I've been so overwhelmed by the noise of the storm.

The whole thing was very fast, not even one fist of the sun's transit I would say. Finally, he speaks, and I can hear him. "Do you think it's over? Is it safe to go out?"

"Let's not just yet," I say, and sink down to sit with my back to the wall. He sits down next to me, shoulder to shoulder, and we just rest in silence. He reaches numbly for my hand, and I let him take it. In any other situation, I would be entranced at being this close to Simon — at having been closer still at the height of the storm. But for now, I'm simply recovering from the stunning of all my senses.

**Simon**

I’ve never felt, seen, or heard anything like that, and my body feels like I’ve been racing. Slowly, I come back to normal — my heart calms down, my breathing becomes quiet again, my senses come back to something like their usual state. “I guess that was the next plague,” I say to Baz.

“It must be. I’m afraid to see what things look like outside.”

That’s when I realize that I’m holding his hand, for the second time in my life. It feels just like I remember. After a nightmare, after a storm. I wonder whether I’ll ever hold his hand when it’s not a crisis. I’m still wet from the sudden downpour, so I take my hand back and wipe the water from my face and hair, brush it off my shoulders. I shiver a little — aftereffects, I guess. “We should go find out,” I say.

We walk out to the building yard together, then pick our way carefully through the hailstones, splitting off in our two different directions, me towards the Hebrew dwellings and him towards his big, fancy house. The world continues to be quiet and only ordinarily bright. 


	13. Locusts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: swarms of insects.

_ A few days after the hail, a mighty wind comes up, blowing from the east. It blows hard all day and all night. When people walk out of doors, the wind pulls hard at their clothes and drives the dust of the streets into their faces. The next day is worse, for the wind brings locusts with it. They come in enormous swarms, covering the ground, covering every surface, entering every house, temple, palace, and storehouse. The buzzing of their wings is too loud to ignore and is heard everywhere. _

_ And they eat. They eat every tiny grain of wheat or spelt, every tiny developing fig that escaped the hailstones, every leaf on every tree, every blade of grass. There will be no fresh food this year anywhere in the land of Egypt. (Except in Goshen.) People begin to cook and eat the locusts, for they are rich and fatty and are the only food that can be found. _

_ After a few days, a great wind arises again, blowing eastward this time. It blows every single locust away (even those that are in the process of being toasted), but not before they devour everything that can be eaten. So now, after this second wind, there are not even locusts to eat (except in Goshen). _

**Baz**

The hail destroyed almost all of this year’s crops, and the locusts finish the job utterly. We scribes survey and total up the damage, but it hardly seems necessary — we should just write “everything is gone” and be done with it. But I need to make a complete list of the nothing that’s left (and the remaining stores from past years), and then I need to share the information with the quartermaster’s corps, and gather information from them. I’m able to arrange to do this with Nil. I haven’t seen him or Dev since the start of the plagues, and I want to know how they’re both doing.

I meet him in the quartermaster’s offices in the garrison. “Hello, Nil. You look worn down.”

“So do you. We’ve been very busy working out how to feed the men and horses without anything from this year’s crops.”

“It’s the same for us. Every animal has to be fed on grain, since the pastures are completely bare after the locusts. And they’ve been working to get the herds back up to strength after the murrain — now that’s just more mouths to feed.” 

We exchange the information we need, and I could go, but I linger instead. I’ve been trying to figure out what the future holds — in this unprecedented year, we all have. Nil is clever and has access to inside information, so I ask him what he thinks. “These plagues are only getting more severe. Will Pharaoh ever give in? What would it take to make him change course?”

It’s important to be careful when discussing Pharaoh, since any criticism is both treason and blasphemy, so Nil starts with a disclaimer: “Of course, I would never speculate about the will of Pharaoh.”

“Of course not.”

“But as you say, the pressure is getting fiercer all the time. I think that there will come a time when the path of wisdom is to free the Hebrews, and Pharaoh is wise.” That’s very diplomatically phrased — typical Nil.

“Do you really think so? I’ve seen what the Hebrews suffer, and they should have some relief.”

“What are you worried about that for? They’re slaves; suffering is pretty much their job.” This attitude repulses me, all the more so since I shared it once. It must show in my face, because Nil looks at me sharply. “Have you gotten soft, working with them so much? You can’t afford that, any more than a farmer can afford to get so fond of his animals that he won’t slaughter them when it’s time.”

“They’re not animals!” It bursts out of me without my willing it. I lower my voice. “They’re men.”

He looks at me again. “Baz, you’re not… involved with one of them, are you?”

I know what he means. I only wish I had that kind of  _ involvement _ . “He’s a friend, that’s all.”

“That’s  _ all? _ That’s  _ worse _ . Egyptians don’t make friends with Hebrews. They’re filthy. They’re Pharaoh’s property, the same as his palaces and his herds.” He’s staring at me and speaking in a fierce whisper. “Does this have anything to do with your missing amulet all those years ago? How long has this been going on?” he demands.

Nil is too damn smart. “Drop it, Nil. This is my business. Just mine, nothing to do with you or with anyone.”

“Baz, it’s madness. This would have been bad enough a few years ago, and I wish I’d gotten to the bottom of it then. But at this point they’re practically an enemy within our gates. With every plague Pharaoh’s hatred for them grows stronger, and your risk grows greater. Whatever you’ve been doing — and please, by all the gods do not tell me anything more about it — you’ve got to stop it. Now.”

“Just forget it, Nil, okay?”

“Believe me, it’s forgotten. But you need to think about what I said.” 

I’ve got no stomach for fond goodbyes, so I leave without them.

**Simon**

Locusts are definitely worse for brickmaking than flies are. They're big and lumpy, and you can't just cover them with a little more mud. On the day the locusts come, we just give up and go home. The next day we're all set to have the kids try to keep the locusts away from the bricks like they did with the frogs — but not very hopefully, because a locust can jump so fast you don't even see it move — it's  _ here, _ and then it's  _ there _ , with no in-between. But the locusts are blown away quickly, so we're able to send the little ones home. 

Later, when I meet Baz behind the storehouse, he looks a little desperate and he says, "I don't know how much more I can take."

I say, "Neither do I. And maybe Pharaoh feels the same way, which I guess is what El Shaddai is counting on."

Baz is silent for a moment. Then he says, “Did I tell you Dafne’s pregnant? She feels a little sick every morning, and she’s tired. It would be a hard time for her without all this.”

“Wow, that’s a big deal. How do you feel about that?”

“I’m excited. I’m going to have a brother or a sister, and maybe more to come after that. I used to wish so hard that I had one, and now I will.”

“I’m so happy for you. I’ve always had Peniah, and I think she’s as close to me as an actual sister, if not more. It means so much.”

“I think my father is worried about Dafne, though he hasn’t actually said so. I can see the strain in him.”

“We’re all feeling like that, I think.”


	14. Darkness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No warnings this time. (Unless you're afraid of descriptions of darkness I guess?) 
> 
> I just want to say that I love you all for reading, and comments feed my soul.

_ Soon after the locusts are blown away comes a day when the sun does not rise, nor can the stars or moon be seen. There is no light at all. A man cannot see his hand in front of his face; a woman can find her infant only by its cries, for she cannot see it. Every fire has gone out, so that there is no firelight. Darkness is absolute; a person cannot see their own hand however close it is to their face; there is no difference between having their eyes open or shut. No one stands or walks about or does anything; everyone sits in silence and fear. _

_ But there is light in every Hebrew home and throughout the land of Goshen. The slaves rest for the three days during which darkness sits heavy and still over the dwellings, palaces, and temples of Egypt. _

**Simon**

It’s been a long, strange year. After every plague, we think, _Well, that’s the worst that’s going to happen this year. That’s done, it’s over, life is back to normal._ And then yet another thing happens. I’ve had enough of insects to last me the rest of my life, for certain — gnats, flies, locusts. (Oh no, there isn’t something even bigger than locusts, is there?)

Anyway, after the locusts get blown away, we’re all pretty worried. There’s really no fresh food left in Egypt except what we’ve grown ourselves on our land. Officials of the court come and take most of what we have. Well, they tell us what they want and make  _ us _ carry it to the palaces and temples. There’s a lot of non-perishable food in all those storehouses that we’ve built, but the Egyptians are not feeling generous, given that our God caused all these plagues. 

Besides that, we haven’t been directly affected by anything after the gnats, so we’re concerned about how much of that food we’re even going to be given. But Pharaoh does still want our labor — there’s no harvesting to be done this year, obviously, but someone has to transport all that stored food, plus some of these plagues involve a lot of cleanup. (Any time I come near anything rotten or spoiled, all I can think about is bloated frogs.) So he needs to feed us something, even if it isn’t much.

Anyway, after the locusts are blown away, life calms down a bit, and I actually spend some time at the brickworks again. We’re not actively building storehouses right now, but they’ll need bricks to repair buildings that were damaged by the hail. (The plague before last, remember?) (At some point all you can do is laugh.) Well, I guess that’s  _ we _ need some bricks to repair them, because of course it’s us Hebrews who will do that work.

One evening, I’m sitting with Peniah after dinner. She looks spooked and exhausted; everybody does. It’s been a long and terrible year.

I say, “You know, I never really cared about El Shaddai before this year. The stories always seemed so long ago and far away. Like he’d forgotten all about us, if he was ever real.”

“I always believed. And you must now, too, after all these signs and wonders.”

“Oh, yes, I started believing during the blood, or maybe the frogs. But I was still doubting his strategy. Everything he did just seemed to make more work for us, more pressure for us, more suffering for us.”

Peniah looks at me curiously. “And what do you think now?”

“I don’t see how the Egyptians can hold out forever. At some point something has to give. I hope it’s soon.”

“I think it must be.” 

I hug her tight, and we go off to our separate houses.

The next day, I wake up to the morning light, stretch, start to go outside the hut, and freeze. It’s light inside our hut, but outside, it’s dark, pitch black, darker than any night I’ve ever seen. As dark as the inside of a tomb.

Tomb. Baz. Baz is afraid of the dark. Is this happening where he is, too? I need to find out what’s going on and if he’s okay, but it’s not clear how I’m going to do that, because I really cannot see one single thing beyond the door of the hut, which makes it hard to go anywhere.

“Eb?” She sleeps later than I do these days, but she’s beginning to stir. “Eb?”

“Mmmh?”

“Eb!”

“Yes, Simon, what is it?”

“Come look at this!”

She comes and looks and says, “Well I’ll be.” Like all of us, Eb has seen things this year that she never expected to see. But there’s something about her age or her general attitude towards life that lets her greet each new disaster more calmly than the rest of us do.

“How can we find out what’s going on, Eb? I need to, um….”

“I expect if we wait we’ll find something out.” And she’s right. We sit and eat and tidy up the hut a bit, and then we just sit, and then Gareth comes from the house next door. He peers around the doorpost, as if he had to feel his way to the door. He tells us that this darkness covers the entire land of Egypt and is going to stay for three days — that’s what he heard from next door, who heard it from their next door, all the way back to the elders who heard it from Moshe. (I bet  _ they _ got advance warning). 

We’ll have light in our houses, but that’s the only place there’s going to be light, so there’s no point in going out to work. I ask whether the Egyptians have light in their houses, and he says he doesn’t know, maybe not, but anyway would I please pass the word to the next house over?

So I tell Eb that I need to go out and do something in the city, and I’ll be very careful, and she should stay safe. Then I take a water skin and step out the door, keeping one hand on the doorpost. I can’t see a thing. Nothing. Not the sky, not my hand. It doesn’t matter whether my eyes are open or shut; it’s the same either way. I slide along the front of the house, keeping my right hand on the wall, until I get to the corner — it’s not far.

I pause at the corner of the hut and think about our position relative to the house next door. They sit a little further forward on the path than us, but their walls are parallel to ours. So if I go just barely around the corner of the hut and put my back to the wall and walk straight forward, I’ll walk into their wall. I do it — with my arms spread wide in case I waver from the path, but a little in front of me, not straight out, so hopefully I’ll hit the house with my hand and not my face. It works, and then I slide to the front side of their house and walk along, right hand on the wall again, until I get to their doorpost.

I stick my head in, and the warm light of Ris’s family’s household is so beautiful after traveling a mere few cubits through the absolute blackness. I’m tempted to go in and stay, rather than having to be in that dark again. But then I think about Baz in the dark, and I know that just staying here is not an option. I tell them what’s happening and that they should pass the word. Then I pull my head back out — that’s one of the harder things I’ve ever done — and go back along the wall a cubit or so away from the door. I stand there against the wall and think about a route to Baz’s house.

I’ve only been there twice, but fortunately it’s near an important temple, and those crazy stone jars by the front door will help me make sure I’m in the right place. I even remember where in the house Baz’s room is. I feel very, very lucky that I’m good at remembering locations and the shapes of things. I plan out a route, focusing on landmarks I can identify by feel. When I’ve gone over the route in my head three times, I take a deep breath and start walking along the front of Ris’s house.

**Baz**

The locusts were pretty awful. Their wings and their jaws were both so noisy, and they covered every surface. The brickworks didn’t operate that day, because who wants a brick full of bugs? We’ve had a number of blessedly ordinary days since then; I even went out yesterday to take a look at brick production restarting. I met Simon’s eyes across the yard, but we didn’t speak. 

In the evening, I went to sleep with an oil lamp burning as usual. Some unknown length of time later I wake in total darkness. Total. Darkness. The oil lamp must have gone out, which is surprising. I always check that the reservoir is full before going to bed, having had the oil run out in the past. I make my way to the window by touch and push aside the matting that keeps insects out.

It is as dark outside as in, which is to say, completely. And that is not possible. If it were still night, there should be moonlight — the moon will be full in just a few days. I feel well rested, so I would think it was daytime, but it is plainly not.

I suddenly feel very, very cold. I begin to shiver. This year has been full of strange and horrifying things, but none of them has seemed so against nature as this, as time outside of time with no light at all. How long will this go on? Until the Hebrews are free? I don’t think I can bear even moments more of this, let alone however long that would be. 

I desperately make my way back to my bed by touch. When I get there, I curl up in a tight ball. I feel the amulet on my wrist with its string of beads. The one where I’ve always felt my connection to my mother’s spirit, looking after me, and which I loaned to Simon so she could look after him, too. I run my thumb back and forth over the Eye of Horus and think,  _ Warm eyes. Glossy curls. Unbreakable spirit. Warm eyes. Glossy curls. Unbreakable spirit. Warm eyes… _

I don’t know how long that goes on. It feels like a very, very long time. I’ve been rocking and rubbing my amulet and thinking about Simon for an unbearable eternity, and I’m not feeling that firmly connected to anything. If reality is unending impenetrable darkness, I would rather float away inside my mind. That’s why I don’t really believe it when I hear footsteps, the slap of sandals coming carefully into my room. I think I cry out in shock and fear.

And then I hear it.

“Baz?”

“Simon? Oh thank all the gods and goddesses!”

The slap-slap of sandals gets faster as if he’s running towards me. The bed jars and I hear, “Fuck!" and I scramble towards him and grab onto whatever bit I can find. I end up with my arms around his legs and my face smashed into the side of his hip, and then he slides down to sit on the bed next to me and wraps his arms tight around me.

“Baz? Are you okay?” 

I’m sure he can hear in my voice how not okay I am, feel it in how tightly I’m clinging to him, feel it in how cold and clammy my skin is. I don’t answer the question because all those signs are mortifying enough without admitting how I feel. (Although I know he must know. That is probably even why he’s here — knowing how I would feel.)

“What are you doing here? Do you know what’s going on? How did you get here?”

“It’s another plague, of course, our God showing his power. It’s going to last three days, and it’s dark everywhere in Egypt. Well, except inside the Hebrew houses. I came here by feel. I’m so glad you have those huge jars outside the door — it was the only way I could be certain I had the right house.”

“You had light in your house, and you left that to come here? Why on earth?”

“I didn’t want you to be alone, and I didn’t know if you’d be okay going to anyone in your house for… going to anyone in your house.” I think he was going to say “for comfort,” and I appreciate his tact in stopping himself. “I don’t know how long it’s been so far. Definitely less than a day. It might be around midday now? There’s no way to judge without looking at the sun or the stars.”

“Three days!?” I don’t know if I can do it.

**Simon**

Baz sounds very distressed at the idea of three days of darkness. I don’t blame him. It’s distressing for anyone — it’s distressing for me. And he’s more afraid of the dark than anything. It brings back his little-boy nightmares from when his mother died. I never had a mother, but I have Eb, have had her for as long as I can remember. He had a mother and lost her. And however wonderful this new wife of his father’s is, she’s not here in his room. I smooth his hair. In reaching for it, I feel wetness on his face. I don’t say anything about it; he wouldn’t like me to. “I’m here, Baz. I’m here.”

**Baz**

He holds me for a while. I still don’t like the dark, but with his voice, his heartbeat, his warm, strong arms, it’s better. My own skin warms back up, my breathing calms down. Then he says, “Do you want to come back to our hut? There’s light there, but it’s a long way to walk in the dark. And Eb will be there; I’ll have to explain your being there somehow.”

I like the idea of being in the light — oh, how I long to be in the light, even the faintest lamplight or starlight — but the idea of walking in absolute darkness to get there is frightening. I know he got here safely, but what if we got separated, or lost? What if we got so lost that we got near the river, the crocodiles? What are all the dangerous animals doing now, anyway? Simon, brave Simon, walked here, but with no people in the streets I imagine the animals may be getting very bold. I don’t want to go out there, but I want even less to be left here alone. Can I possibly ask him to stay?

I’m going to ask him to stay.

“Would… would you stay here with me? Can you do that, will Eb be okay?”

“She has food and water. She’s alone, but she’s a peaceful soul. It’s hard to ruffle her; I think she’ll be fine. So yes, I can stay with you. Here, let’s lie down.”

And we lie down together on my bed, arms around each other. We start facing each other, my face snuggling into his curls. We turn this way and that now and again, slowly, lazily. We drink sparingly from the water skin that Simon brought with him. We don’t have food, but I don’t even want to go to the kitchen to look for some — to feel around for some. I don’t really know where Wera keeps most of the things, and I’m afraid I’d make a mess. Or really, I’m just afraid.

I suppose Dafne is with Father, so at least they aren’t alone. I don’t know about Wera, and I am too much of a coward to even suggest we go check on her together. When we need it, we feel our way to the chamber pot. We sleep, on and off, to no rhythm or pattern — another thing that’s lost with the march of the heavens. We touch each other’s faces, our chests. We snuggle back to front, front to front; we lie side by side. We tell stories from our childhoods.

**Simon**

I don’t know how long we’ve been lying here, holding each other, whether it’s full length body-to-body, or holding hands, or hands on faces. I know it’s been less than three days, because it’s still dark.

I like this timeless time together. Out in the desert, on our trip to and from Pithom, we were away from the rules and the hierarchies, and we were able, just a bit, to share some of ourselves. Here in this measureless dark, we can share more. On the road, he asked whether we could ever be friends, and I said we couldn’t because he would always have power over me.

But who has power over who, now?  _ Does _ one of us have power in the dark? If anyone does, I suppose it’s me, because I’m the one who was able to come all this way to help a friend. He’s the one who couldn’t even leave his room (and I understand it, and I don’t blame him). He’s been alone, trapped inside his recurring nightmare. His skin was clammy when I got here, but he’s warmed and dried in my arms. I’m helping him by being here. I’m feeling him warm and safe and under my hands where I want him. I want him to know how perfect he is. 

And so I kiss him.

**Baz**

We’ve been holding hands, and wrapping ourselves in each other’s arms, and exchanging stories and sharing silence. And then, during a silence, I feel his hand on my cheek and then I feel his lips on mine, ever so softly.

A thing I have wanted for years and thought I could never have: his lips on mine.

I don’t know whether these plagues and wonders will free the Hebrews or not. I told him months ago that I think he should be free, and I’ve only become more sure of that as time continues to pass. I hope they get their freedom, and I think they will. But if these signs and wonders get me a kiss from Simon ben Davi, that’s miracle enough for me.

And they bring me far more than one kiss, because once we start, there is no stopping us. I’ve never kissed anyone before; maybe he has. I haven’t asked. But we lie here, in the dark, inventing new things to do with our lips and even our tongues. We explore, we ask, we caress, we welcome, we play, all without a word. It goes on for a very long time, and then I fall asleep with my nose mashed against his and my lips raw.

And I wake to sunshine.

**Simon**

The morning sun is like a blessing. It’s so beautiful. And I can see Baz’s face. Even with his new scars from the boils, his features are even and handsome. I wonder what’s next for us. Now that the sun’s back, are we stuck back into our roles of scribe and slave? Or will we Hebrews go free, and does that mean I never see Baz again?

I feel him starting to stir. I’ve been so happy alone in the dark with him. I don’t know what happens in the light. But I’m three days worth of hungry, and to judge from the past, things will only be worse for us slaves after the three days when work was impossible. Eb is going to need me, and I’m going to have to report for work.

Baz opens his eyes and I look straight into them. “Hello,” I say.

“Good morning,” he answers.

“Yes,” I say. “Very good.” I smile at him and look into his eyes. He reaches to touch my cheek and I lean in to kiss him. I mean for it to be quick, but I should know by now that nothing is ever quick or simple with Baz. He makes me feel so much.

I eventually manage to pull back. He looks at me worriedly and asks “What now?”

“I don’t know.” I shake my head. “I just don’t know. I wish I did. This… this was wonderful. But nothing’s different, is it? I’m still a slave. I need to be at the brickworks today.”

He grabs my face in both hands, looking desperate. “Don’t say nothing’s different. Don’t say that. Please.”

I look at him and I feel tears threatening. “Yes, something’s different between us. But even in this crazy year, things haven’t changed enough to make this safe. I wish they had. I really do. But I need to get out so that no one catches me here. You know that too.”

His eyes widen at the idea of being caught. “Yes. I know that too.” He sounds as close to tears as I feel.

I’d love to kiss him one last time, but I don’t know if I’d be able to leave at all, so I just squeeze his hand, then go.

My trip back home is much faster than the trip here was since I can see where I’m going. Throughout the city, I see people standing outside, dazed, just looking at the light. Breathing without fear. Adjusting to the world being the way it should be, again. But I smell Baz’s sweat and perfume on me, and I ache at the thought of the world going back to what it was three days ago. 

When I arrive at the hut, I’m glad to see that Eb is, in fact, okay. She doesn’t ask where I’ve been. I wonder if she somehow knows.

I eat and change my loincloth, and before I know it Peremal is telling me that I have to be back at work. It’s right back to making bricks, hauling bricks, stacking bricks. It’s a normal work day, except that we’re all still a bit in awe of the fact that the sun is giving light that we can see by, even out of doors. Everyone is chattering about the darkness, what they did in their lit huts to pass the time, what might come next. I’m barely listening, my thoughts full of Baz.

I go home, and Eb and I have dinner with Peniah’s family as usual. Everyone has a sort of manic energy, not quite sure what to do about being together again. I hug Peniah about five times.

I go to bed, expecting another day of brickmaking to follow. Instead, I get instructions first thing in the morning. We’re not to go to work. Our God is making one more strike against the Egyptians, after which we’ll be leaving. We need to make preparations today. Every family needs to kill a lamb, or share one with another family if their family is small. Then we need to paint the blood of the sacrifice all around the door with a bundle of herbs and eat the meat — we need to stay indoors, packed and ready to go, sandals on our feet.

It all sounds very strange, but it’s been a very strange year.

And then I hear what this final plague is going to be, and I start to run.


	15. Death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: death on a massive scale; adult circumcision without anesthesia; animal sacrifice; blood.

**Baz**

The first day of sunlight after the darkness, I work at home. I know Simon and the rest of the slaves won’t have that choice, but I do, and I’m weak, and I’m hungry, and I’m exhausted from fear and exhausted from the elation of kissing Simon.

And if I go to the brickworks, I'll see Simon. See Simon, and not touch him. If I get a chance to speak to him, I won't be able to say any of the things I want to say or ask any of the questions thronging in my heart. That’s how it will always be, unless things change in some way I can’t even imagine. So I give myself the grace of one day at home collating notes, making fair copies, doing other mentally restful tasks.

The following day I’m getting ready to go to work, determined to do my job and stay calm around Simon, then perhaps stay after to talk with him, when he comes pounding into the house. He rushes up to me and grabs me by the shoulders.

“Baz! I’m so glad I found you! Listen — you have to come away with me! Our God is going to kill all the firstborn sons in Egypt tonight. Tonight! If you stay here, you'll die.”

“How can a god do that? And Egypt has gods, too!”

“Yes. Egypt has a dozen little gods. A god of the sun, a god of death. Our God is the God of everything. Of sunlight and shadow, life and death… of blood and darkness and fiery hail… of frogs and flies! A God of everything, don't you understand that!? We're only going to live because we've been told how. We have to make a sacrifice and mark our doorposts and stay inside all night long. If we go out, we'll be killed.”

“Well, can't you tell me how to make the sacrifice here?”

“I don't know if that will work. Maybe it needs to be a Hebrew home. Maybe it needs to be a Hebrew who makes the sacrifice. I don't want to risk you. Come with me,  _ please!” _

“I could never come back. If you're right, if I live, and thousands die here… no one would understand. I could never come back.”

“Yes. And we're going to leave. This is going to be the final plague, and it will all be over. El Shaddai will win our freedom, and we’re going to leave. So you can stay here and die, or stay here and live, if I'm wrong. But either way, we're leaving, now or soon, and you'll never see me again. Is that what you want?”

“You could stay here with me.” I don't know how that would work. But this is where my life is... where everything in my life  _ except him _ is.

“I'll always be a slave here, a Hebrew slave. And if all my people have left, what would they do to a Hebrew who stayed behind? I'd be lucky to be left alive!”

“But what will I do if I go with you? You won't need scribes in the desert! And I'll be leaving everyone and everything. I'd be leaving my father and his wife. She’s pregnant — I’m going to be a brother! I'd be leaving my mother's tomb. There will be no one to bring her offerings.”

“If you come with us, you'll have a life the same as me, the same as any Hebrew man. You can become one of us. And you would be with me. I  _ need _ you with me, Baz. Life... I want to be free, but life won't have any sweetness without you.  _ Please,  _ Baz.”

He's right, of course. I might not huddle in his hut with him to save my life. But to save myself from a life without him... I would go anywhere, do anything. I would cross every line. I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

“I'll come.” 

He grabs me in a tight embrace, squeezing the breath out of me. I start to think about what I need to bring with me, and what I should leave behind. Simon helps me select food from the kitchen that will be good for the journey: dried meats, dried fruits, some bread. Wera is there but doesn't ask what we are doing. She looks sad, so I think she guesses. 

We go to my chamber, where I take some clothing. I take a long look at my writing board, my pens, my brushes, my ink. I stop to write a brief note to my father.  _ I have gone to safety. I will not see you again in this life. I hope Dafne’s child is strong and beautiful.  _ I leave the note at the bottom of a stack of papyrus so it won’t be found too soon. I leave all the writing tools, as I won’t need them again. I spend a few moments taking the paint off my face. I don’t pack my cosmetics; they won’t be part of my life any more.

Simon sees me, sees how somber I am. He touches my hand. “You should bring gold, and jewelry.”

“What?”

“We're supposed to bring gold and jewelry. To borrow them, the elders say, but I guess it's not borrowing if we're going to leave.”

“No, I guess it's not.”

I gather up some things that are fine but light — arm bands, a festival neckpiece, all my rings — and we walk out of my father's house. Past my parents' room. Through the atrium, painted with beautiful murals, where we used to eat sweet and savory foods in the evening, where my father would entertain important guests. Through the front courtyard, with its cool pools of water and the plants carefully tended by our servants. I can't believe that I'll never see it again. 

I can't really believe that what Simon says is true, that thousands will die tonight and tomorrow. That the Hebrews, who have been slaves in Egypt longer than anyone remembers, will go free. But amazing things have happened in this last year. The river turned to blood, frogs everywhere, fire from the sky, and the recent unbearable stretch of impenetrable dark. So it could be true. It could be. And that's why I'm here, arms full of jewelry, walking away from my past at the side of this handsome, muscled, speckled man.

We walk down a street of artisans, towards the smaller, poorer homes, past which are found the huts and hovels of the slaves, poor houses that are made and maintained in hours snatched before or after long days of hard labor for other people. He clears his throat. “There's one more thing.” I can tell he doesn't want to tell me this.

“Oh?” I ask.

“Um. The sacrifice. To share in the sacrifice.”

“What about it?”

“Youhavetobecircumcised.”

It takes me a minute to parse it out.

“I have to be  **_what_ ** _!? _ ” I stop and stare at him.

“You can only share in the sacrifice if you're circumcised.” He grabs my hands. “I know. It's awful. I had it done when I was a baby, so I didn't have to say yes to it. I know it’s too much to ask.” He sounds desperate. “But it's the — it's the seal on the contract. It marks our deal with God. Only circumcised men can share in the sacrifice. It makes you one of us. I won't blame you if you want to go back. Only… only then you'll die. And I'll have to live without you. And I don't know if I can.” He pauses and swallows (it’s so beautiful!)

“So please?”

He's looking me right in the eyes. He doesn't do that often. I think it's hard for him, but there he is, looking straight at me, pleading with his eyes, waiting for my answer.

He’s asking me to become a Hebrew, a thing I never imagined. But I also never imagined Simon begging me to go with him.

I want my answer to be, “Anubis take it!” But the way he's looking at me... he believes that this is the only way to save my life, and the only way for us to be together past this nightfall.

“If I ever, ever find out that there was another way, so help me...” 

He laughs, and I know it's not just my words, but his relief when he realizes that I'll go along with it.

We get to his hut and put the things I've brought into a sturdy sack. He searches out a small, dusty bottle and hands it to me, saying, “Drink this. You'll need it.” I take out the stopper and sniff. It's strong wine, and it smells sharp and nasty. But he's right, I will need something, so I toss it back. It is the roughest thing I have ever tasted, and it leaves me gasping for breath.

Simon leads me to lie down on his pallet and hands me a piece of rope. I twist it around my hands and pull as hard as I can, feeling the rope bite in deep, anything to distract me from what's about to happen. “Do it.”

“Now?”

“Yes,  _ now,  _ by Thoth!”

He takes a knife and lifts up my skirt, I feel his gentle touch and then the pain begins. It burns, and it cuts, and I start to scream, and then I can't see or think or feel anything but the pain. I hear his voice: “It’s done, Baz.” I whimper and curl in on myself. After a moment I feel him against my back, his arms around me, his breath in my ear. “All done, Baz, all done. You can rest now.” Tears streak sideways down my cheeks as I let him hold me. I can't imagine what god would want this or be worth this. But then, I’m not doing it for a god. I’m doing it for Simon.

**Simon**

I lie down behind Baz, holding him tightly, burying my face in his hair. I can’t believe he went through that for me — for us. He’s so tough and self-contained. I would stay here with him all day if I could — he deserves nothing less — but I also need to do our part of the sacrifice. Eb has been with the flocks all day, making sure everyone gets an animal that needs one. She let me know that we would share with Gareth’s family, and that they’d take care of getting the lamb. So I go next door and check in with them. His mother is about fed up with having a lamb in their house, actually, and tells me and Gareth to get it over with. 

Gareth gets a knife and the bunch of herbs (which the lamb has apparently been nibbling on, but I think we have enough left). I lead the lamb outside and then hold it still while he slits its throat. I don’t love the sound it makes, but I’ve seen plenty of animals slaughtered — it’s where meat comes from and one of the main reasons we keep flocks. Eb always says that it’s no sin to kill an animal if you do it for a purpose and as kindly as you can.

The lamb’s lifeblood runs out in the pathway, and I take the herbs from Gareth and paint our lintel and doorposts with the blood, then hand them back so he can do the same at his house. He sections off a leg quarter, which should be enough for the three of us. (I don’t tell him there are three of us. I haven’t got a clear idea of how I’m going to account for Baz. But he is one of us now, and if this works the way Moshe has promised, and we’re expelled from Egypt tomorrow, he’s coming too. That’s final.) I skin our meat, thank Gareth, and look in on Baz on my way to the nearest fire pit to set our meat to roasting.

I leave it on a flat rock at the edge of the fire — there are so many pieces of meat roasting on rocks and simple spits. There are two young women there tending the fire and turning the meat so everything gets cooked properly. I thank them and go home to hold Baz’s hand and wait for Eb.

When I get there, I kneel down by him and ask how he is. He says, “I’m fine, but for the sake of Min don’t make me talk.” So I sit beside him and hold his hand — he grips mine tightly — and wait for Eb.

She comes home after a while — I guess everybody got their lamb, and the flocks are secured for the night — and she looks at me. And she looks at Baz. And she looks at our hands, clutched tightly together. I don’t know quite what to say, so I just say, “Eb, this is Baz. He’s coming with us.”

“I can see that. Welcome to the family, Baz.”

I love the way Eb has always seemed able to understand me without needing many words between us.

Dusk begins to fall, and I go back to the fire and fetch our meat, and also some bread that one of the women gives us — everyone knows Eb is too busy with the flocks to bake. I bring the food back to the hut, where Eb has packed up the few things we’ll be taking with us and is sitting next to Baz, humming a tune that sounds sad and happy at once, a song for leaving things behind in the hope of something better. 

We usually go to sleep when it gets dark to save oil, but there’s nothing to save it for, now, and there’s no way we could sleep. So I light the lamp, and Eb shares around the food. Baz doesn’t want much, but I get him to eat some, since everyone needs to share it. I’m hungry even though I’m nervous — I’m usually hungry anyway, and fresh roasted meat in this quantity is a rare treat. Eb takes a moderate portion for herself.

And then we wait. I fidget nervously, worrying and tugging at my hair and shifting and re-shifting my weight, standing and sitting and turning in the small space, crowded now with the three of us. I would go outside and pace, but now that night is falling, we’re supposed to stay inside until it’s time to go.

Eventually Eb says, “That’s not going to help your friend. Here. If you need to fuss, you can at least make some music.” She pulls a small hand-drum out of one of our bundles and hands it to me. So I put all my energy into my fingertips, dancing and skipping them on the taut skin. And Eb sends her song of melancholy hope to dance around my beat, and then I’m surprised to hear Baz join in very quietly as well.

Our song goes loud, then quiet, fast, then slow, making its own way through the night. We take breaks, and then one of us picks it up again, all without talking. It reminds me of sharing timeless kisses in the dark with Baz (was that only two days ago? It seems like it’s where we’ve been all my life) — it has the same sense of following its own patterns and happening without a plan in exactly the right way.

Eventually, we all fall silent. We sit expectantly for a long time, watching the shadows inside dance as the lamp flickers, watching the shadows outside change as the full moon moves across the sky. When the shadows have grown short and the moon is directly overhead, I’m still awake, but Baz and Eb are both dozing. I think I hear wailing and cries in the distance, and I shiver.

**Interlude**

_ At a point midway between dusk and dawn, in the dark of midnight, the first born of Egypt just… stop. A young mother is nursing her child. The baby stills, and for a moment she thinks he has fallen asleep mid-suck, as he sometimes does. But she realizes that he is too motionless, not stirring, not breathing, and she shakes him and begins to scream. Next door, a woman wakes up, startled from a dream by the anguished wail. She nudges her husband to get him to investigate (she can't believe that he is sleeping through the sound), and he lies there, unresponsive, and she, too, begins to scream.  _

_ Three young siblings are sleeping piled together in the servants’ quarters of the palace. The middle sister is irritated by how heavily her brother’s arm is lying on her and shoves it aside. He moves like a dead weight, but she's too tired to notice. When the sound of the screams reaches her a short time later, and the youngest brother begins to wail, but their brother stays lying flat on his face, she realizes that something is wrong. Four guards flank the palace doors; one falls to the ground, and the others run to his side to investigate. And so it goes, throughout the land of Egypt, until wailing and tears and panicked shouts are heard in every house. _

_ But not in the land of Goshen. _

**Simon**

The shadows have been lengthening again for some time when I hear a great cry through the camp. “It’s time! It’s time!” I hear it from every direction. I wake Baz and Eb as gently as I can before sticking my head out of the door and crying it out myself. After a year of miracles, a year of plagues, a year of suffering, a lifetime of slavery: “It’s time!” 

I help Baz, who is still in pain that I can’t imagine, and Eb, who is not young any more and has had a very long day, to their feet. I pick up our bundles, and we leave the hut. We join the other families streaming out of huts and houses, along the path, small streams of people joining into larger and larger streams. I don’t know how I’ll ever find Peniah in this multitude, but I know she’s here somewhere.

We all are.


	16. The Journey Begins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No content warnings today! We are on the next to last chapter -- can you believe it? Thank you for sticking with this intense journey. I love comments!

**Baz**

I didn’t know what I expected Eb to be like. All I knew before tonight was that she was a herder, and Simon loved her. Now I see why. Not only because she’s raised him and cared for him, but also because she is a person of peace and wisdom. Her soulful tunes made me think of my own mother, who I lost when I was five, and whose tomb I will never visit again. My father will keep up the offerings, I know, and Dafne will help him and make sure that her own children continue them in the future.

Eb had never met me, and I don’t know whether Simon had told her anything about me. But he introduced me (me, lying huddled in pain, not prepared to rise or greet this elder, worthy of respect and on whom my future might depend) and she said, “Welcome to the family.” We’re surrounded by families of the more usual sort: Each with a man and a woman and children. The littlest ones carried. Old people being helped along. Not every family has that shape, as I know well from my mother’s death and my father’s remarriage. But they are nearly all groups bound by blood.

And then here we are. A widow, and orphan, and a convert. Two men bound by love. (Does Simon love me? We haven’t said it in so many words. But we’ve held hands, and we’ve kissed, and he begged me to come with him.) Two motherless men and a childless woman. But I think Eb is right. This is a family.

We walk through dawn and all day until evening. The throng is enormous — I can’t see any end to the sea of people, either ahead of us or behind us. This means we move slowly, which I am thankful for, between my recent wound and a night of not much sleep. Finally we all stop for the night. Our little group spreads out two blankets — one for Eb, and one for me and Simon. We sit on them to eat our dinner. The bread is flat and hard — it had no time to rise before everyone packed up and left. After dinner, we lie down to sleep. Simon and I face each other, and I look shyly at his eyes. He puts his hand to my cheek and kisses me gently. I smile against his lips and lay my arm around his shoulders, pulling him close. His warm, strong body is entrancing, but even so, we are so tired that we fall asleep quickly.

**Simon**

It’s hard to get solid information on what’s going on. There are so many people here, and there are a lot of different rumors going around. (Someone said there are hundreds of thousands of us, but I have no idea if that’s right, or really even how many that is — I can’t reckon above a few dozen.) Anyway, the thing I’ve heard most often is that we’re going to Sukkoth. That’s not much farther than Pithom, from what I understand. I could have made it by last night, if I were walking on my own. But I’m not; I’m walking as part of this absolutely vast crowd of people, including children and old folks, carrying their food and tools and everything else they’ve got.

They wake us early in the morning — I melt at the fond look Baz gives me when he first wakes up — and another day’s march gets us to Sukkoth — so I guess that rumor was true. Then one more day gets us to Etham, and we’re camping on the edge of the true desert, the wilderness. There won’t be roads or towns or any other travelers from here on out. We’re headed for a place that’s “flowing with milk and honey,” which sounds nice at first but seems both improbable and impractical when you think about it for a minute.

When we wake at Etham, Baz looks off to the distance. “That’s where we’re going, huh? It doesn’t look like much.”

“It looks like freedom, is what it looks like. If there are no buildings there, well, that’s partly because no one made me build one. And anything I do build is going to be for me and my people. Which includes you now.” I grin at him.

Baz looks abashed. “You’re right. It’s just a lot to get used to. Five nights ago I slept in the house I had lived in all my life and expected to live in until maybe I someday had a house of my own. Now I’m in the wilderness with a vast horde of people I’ve never met. Except you and Peniah and Eb, and a few people who know me from the work sites and probably resent me.”

“Are you sorry you came?”

“No. Not really. I wanted you to be free, and I didn’t want to die… I’d rather be here with you than anywhere without you. I can face the future with you, side by side. I’m glad to. But you’ll have to give me some time to get used to it.”

“Fair enough,” I say. I take both his hands, and I kiss him. Twice. Three times. Some… large number of times.

Suddenly, Baz pulls away from me, and I realize that Eb has been clearing her throat increasingly loudly for a while, and people all around us are bundling up their belongings and getting ready to move out. I feel sheepish, but Eb is gazing fondly at both of us, and I smile back at her as I retie our bundles. 

As I stand up, Baz smacks me on the shoulder as if to get my attention. “What?” I ask, a bit testily. He points wordlessly towards the horizon. In the distance, there is an enormous pillar of dark smoke reaching to the heavens. I don’t know what it can be, but as the multitude starts to get underway, we’re walking towards it.

**Baz**

All day, we’re walking towards the pillar of smoke. It seems to move away from us as we move towards it, as if it is leading us onward. I suppose it is. I guess it’s not surprising that a God who can turn a river to blood and steal the light from the world for three days can also make a trail marker that reaches to the sky and moves around as needed. Then, as night falls, the pillar changes from smoke, which would be hard to see, to brilliant fire, red and orange light casting out sparks in all directions but not setting any of the sparse desert plants on fire. Between the moon, only a few days from full, and the tower of flame, we can continue marching well past dusk.

Today we ended up walking near Simon’s friend Peniah and her family, and her mother (who is plainly a formidable woman) had apparently been talking to the wife of one of the elders of the tribe. The elders get information and orders direct from Moshe, who is the one who went to Pharaoh and announced the miraculous plagues and demanded freedom for the Hebrews and finally got it. So, we actually got some more reliable news than just the general run of rumors. 

They’ve been told that even though Pharaoh had his court officials hound the Hebrews (who I’m afraid I still don’t think of as “us,” but I’m working on it) out of their dwellings and send them away, he’s going to think better of it and pursue us. His army is legendary — it has hundreds of chariots, pulled by horses and carrying archers, and they are feared in all the nations around Egypt. I never expected that I would need to flee Pharaoh’s army — in fact, my cousin Dev is a charioteer. Dev would never shoot me, not if he knew that was what he was doing, but a mass of armed chariots pursuing a great mass of escaping slaves? He’ll fire — they all will.

Peniah took a few minutes to talk to me directly, with Simon a bit ahead of us. She says, “This must be a huge change for you. How are you doing?”

“I’m… all right. This is a change for everyone here, really.”

“Yes, but we knew to expect it. We knew Moshe was pushing and pushing to get us free. And even before that, slaves always dream of leaving. Every time we heard the elders tell stories of our ancestors, we wished that life was our life. Did you ever think of a life outside of Egypt?”

“No, never. Not even when I started trying to picture a life with Simon.”

“Do you miss your comforts? Beds and fancy food and all that?”

“Of course. But the best night I ever spent was on the ground in the desert.”

She smiles. “With Simon on the trip to Pithom?”

I goggle at her. “You knew?”

“I guessed. He was distracted for days afterwards, and I didn’t think it was just the chance to stretch his legs.” I blush and look away.

That evening at dinner, Eb asks me what is becoming an all-too-familiar question. “How are you doing, Baz?”

I throw my (flat, hard) bread on the ground. “Why does everyone keep  _ asking _ me that?”

“Because you’ve left a lot behind, and we care about you.”

“I’m an adult. I can do this!”

“Of course you are, and of course you can. But it’s okay to grieve your losses.”

I think about Dafne’s baby that I’ll never meet, and my mother’s tomb that I’ll never visit again. I pick up my bread, brush off the dirt, and try not to think too hard about the fact that I’m eating off the ground.

Eb adds, “We’ve all been through a lot this year, and we’re all adjusting to enormous changes. You could ask us the same questions we’ve been asking you.”

I hadn’t thought of that. “Well then, how are you doing?”

“I’m doing wonderfully. Because no more Hebrew children will grow up as slaves. Because the year of plagues is over. But most of all because of what I see on Simon’s face when he looks at you.” She smiles at me, and her eyes twinkle. “And what I see when you look back at him.”

I blink hard and chew on my bread.

After some days of travel — walking all day and some of the night — we reach the edge of a great sea rimmed with tall reeds. We’re told to camp by the sea, and for once not to follow the pillar of smoke. Indeed, it moves back the way we have come, standing between us and Pharaoh’s army. So here we are, trapped between an army and the water with only smoke (divine smoke, holy smoke, but still, in the end, smoke) between us and them.


	17. The Sea of Reeds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have made it to the end! Thank you for following along on this journey. I'm grateful to all of you for reading, for commenting, for your enthusiasm.
> 
> If you're interested in details of the decisions I made as I wrote and the Jewish texts and traditions that influenced this fic, I'll be posting an extended author's note as the second work in this series.
> 
> Content warning: mass drowning.

**Simon**

The crowd is getting more bunched up. It feels like we’re trapped between the pillar of smoke on one side and the great sea on the other. We’re looking down at the sea, and I’ve never seen so much water all in one place. I can’t see past the pillar of smoke, but Peniah says we’re being pursued by Pharaoh and his army, and I think she’s right — I never really believed that he would just let us go.

I feel a tension building in the people around me, hear increasingly worried murmurs. Someone shouts, “Why bring us here to die? We could have died comfortably in Egypt!” The cry is met with sounds of frustration and agreement. Everyone is very uncertain. It feels like something is about to burst. Is this what a baby feels like when it’s about to be born?

Suddenly a great wind blasts over us. It comes from the smoke and goes over us, past us, towards the shore. It sounds like a desertful of sand being poured onto stone. As it rushes onward down the hill, I hear a gasp and a great stirring in the crowd. I look around to see what's happened, and I realize that everyone around us is turning to face downhill to the sea. The wind has split the sea in two and laid the ground bare — what was the bottom of the sea is like a broad road between two walls of water. The crowd begins, unbelievably, to flow down the hill and onto that road.

I look at Baz and Eb in astonishment. Nothing we have seen this year compares to this. We close up together so we’re shoulder to shoulder, and we walk forward, in the heart of the whole Hebrew people, towards the rift in the sea. There are so many Hebrews, and the path through the sea is so long, that day fades into night as we walk between the walls of water in our thousands. I look over my shoulder and see that the pillar of smoke has become a pillar of fire once again.

When it’s the turn of our little group (our family?) to pass through, I look at the water towering over our heads on either side. It’s very frightening — suppose the miracle fails and the water crashes down? But it doesn’t, and we pass through the sea — between the sea — and climb onto the high ground on the other side. We turn back to look at the sea, and we see our people continuing to stream through. As the final Hebrews climb onto the bank, the pillar of fire whips out of the way, and Pharaoh’s army, horses and men and chariots, comes storming down the hill and into the gap in the waters.

Fear is reaching a peak among the throng of Hebrews again, but we’re not moving up and away, just standing as if stuck to the ground, watching the army pour between the walls of water. I want to get out of here, but in the midst of so many people it’s not possible. And then, when the entire army is on the seabed, the thing I had feared happens — the water falls with a mighty crash and enormous waves. There’s whirlpools and chaos, the brief neighing of terrified horses, the shouts of terrified men, and then only the dying crash of the waves, spears and bows and nameless fragments being washed this way and that as the water settles back into its place as if it had never parted.

A mighty shout of relief, of freedom, of vindication goes up all around me, and I’m caught up in it for exactly one moment. And then I realize that Baz is crying out not in joy but in horror. He starts to run down towards the sea, and I understand. Those are Egyptians, drowned in the sea. And to him, that doesn’t mean freedom. I catch him around the shoulders and hold him still. He struggles with me as I say, “Baz! Stop! There’s nothing you can do. I’m sorry. I'm so sorry."

The cheers around us become singing — a song of joy and triumph, extolling our God and his might, praising him as a warrior who has cast the chariots into the sea. Women take out small drums and begin to dance with triumphant joy, a very different mood from the wistful melodies that Baz, Eb, and I sent around our little hut on our last evening in Rameses. “Who is like you among the gods, our Lord, who is like you, great in holiness, awesome in glory, doing wonders?” they sing. “Horse and rider He has cast into the sea,” all sung to joyful dancing.

**Baz**

After a moment, I stop fighting Simon and collapse against him. He starts leading me through the throng, up off the broad pathway onto the hillside. As he does, I realize what I’m hearing.

“They're singing, Simon, they're singing! And dancing. Look at all those bodies, those men, those horses, those chariots... My cousin Dev was a charioteer. My friend Nil was in the quartermaster's corps. The last time I saw Nil, I  _ fought _ with him, and now they’re both dead, floating there or tangled in the wreckage, and these people are shouting their joy!”

He holds me tight and leans his head against mine, cradling the back of my head with his hands but saying nothing. Eb puts her arms around us both as she says “They're only human, Baz. They're not happy that those people are dead, not exactly. They're happy that they feel safe and free, for the first time ever. But I’m so sorry for what you’ve lost.” And she plants a kiss on my shoulder.

I think about the cost, all the costs. I think about Dev and Nil and thousands like them. I think about the baby I’ll never meet, about my mother, gone for many years, about my home. About people crushed by hail. About a nation without food. About a dead child in every family except mine, because I ran away. And like those walls of water crashing down, my tears rush out of me, storming wildly, leaving chaos in their wake, as Simon holds me.

He lowers me to sit on some of our bundles and then wraps himself back around me. We sit there for a long time, and I finally bury my face in my hands and blurt out, “I don’t know if I can do this, Simon. I want to be with you. But what has it brought me? Thousands of Egyptians dead. My cousin and my friend dead. For Osiris’ sake, you cut off part of my penis and it still hurts!”

I look at him. “You should keep going, Simon. You’ll get left behind.”

“Only if you come with me, Baz.” Simon swallows. (Even in my distraught state, I notice his swallow. It’s beautiful.) “You asked what this has brought you. It’s brought you to a place where you and I can be equals, where we can share a blanket under the stars, not alone, but in the midst of a nation. Where we can walk side by side and not have to skulk behind a storehouse to have a conversation.” He takes my hands. “I want to be with you. Wherever you are. Wherever we can have this. You’ve lost so much for it, and I’m so, so sorry. And I’m not leaving you.”

I rub the back of my hand against my eyes, smearing my tears. “We can’t go back to Egypt, Simon. Before, you couldn’t be there and be free. Now I don’t think they’d let you live. And besides, there’s a sea in the way.” We both laugh wetly (I think he’s crying too).

“Well then, we won’t go back to Egypt. What else have you got?”

“Well…” I think. “We can’t stay here. Three of us, in the wilderness? I doubt we’d live very long.” I throw my head back and sigh. “I’ve just proved it, haven’t I? We have no choice.”

“No choice other than…?” he asks, looking at me out of the side of his eyes. (Eb is tactfully facing away from us.) 

“We have to carry on. Into the future, into the desert, side by side. Into the Hebrew future, whatever that looks like.”

“I think you’re right. And I hope you can find some happiness in that future. But we don’t have to set off this instant. It’s going to take everybody a long time to pass us by, and even after they do, the smoke and fire are visible for a long damn way. We can sit here until you’re really ready to move. Sleep here for a night or two, even, if you want.”

I slump against him, unspeakably grateful. We’ll carry on in a day or two, but for now, some grace for healing, some more time to cry and be held, is exactly what I need.

**Epilogue**

We stayed there by the path, up above the Sea of Reeds, for a day and a half in all. I cried, I rested. I told Eb and Simon about Dev and Nil and my few precious memories of my mother. About the cool green pool in the courtyard of the house, about Dafne’s baby and Father’s expectations. Finally, when I had said, if not everything, enough, we got up and walked again towards the pillar of smoke and fire. Simon was right  — the mass of people didn’t move quickly. We caught up with them within three days.

We’ve had several new moons since then, and amazing things have happened. We all waited at the foot of a mountain as Moshe stood upon it in a fiery storm and brought back eternal laws from Adonai (yet another name for El Shaddai, our God). And yes, he is my God now, too, truly.

The food we brought with us is long gone, but we’re fed on amazing stuff that appears on the surface of the desert overnight.

I thought there would be no use for a scribe in the desert, but I was wrong. Moshe brought back two stone tablets with laws carved on them, but there’s far more to the law that he’s written down as well, as God told it to him. I’ve been learning Hebrew letters so I can help make further copies of the Law. And we need to reckon up and record the livestock for sacrifices, and the materials to build the portable temple that will house Adonai in our midst, and so many other things. 

So I have a job, a way that I can contribute to my new people. I have a family. I have a future.

And I have Simon.

And he is all I need.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry about Dev and Nil! The Jewish tradition tells us to be mindful of the Egyptian suffering at the Sea of Reeds, and that's how I did it. There are more details in the author's note (the second work in this series).
> 
> I love getting comments!

**Author's Note:**

> I am very, very grateful to my betas, who made this a much better fic.
> 
> [Gampyre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gampyre) is a grammar ninja and helped me see where I needed to add more incident and humanity. Check out her sweet community garden AU [Companion Planting](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24729892/chapters/59780263).
> 
> [tbazzsnow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artescapri/pseuds/tbazzsnow) urged me to delve more into some of the character's more difficult feelings and caught a slew of continuity errors. Her sweet non-magickal AU [Can't Find My Way Home](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17903873/chapters/42267803) is one of my very favorite fics.
> 
> My friend Rabbi David Booth of Congregation Kol Emeth checked the Jewish content. You can read his weekly sermon at [CyberTorah](https://www.rabbibooth.org/cybertorah/).
> 
> Thanks to [cmere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cmere/pseuds/cmere) for general cheerleading and for reassurance on the kiss scene.


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